Nvidia is now worth more than Amazon thanks to the AI chip boom

Nvidia surpassed Amazon in market capitalization on Tuesday. It's a sign of strong demand for semiconductors that run cutting-edge artificial intelligence and the investor appetite for the companies that make the chips.

Nvidia closed at $721.28 per share, giving it a market value of $1.78 trillion to Amazon's $1.75 trillion market cap. While Nvidia also briefly passed Amazon on Monday, this is the first since 2002 that Nvidia is worth more after the market close.

Nvidia's main products in 2002 were graphics cards for gaming PCs. But Nvidia shares are up over 246% in the last 12 months on robust demand for its server AI chips that can cost more than $20,000 each. Companies such as Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta need tens of thousands of them to run products such as ChatGPT and Copilot.

Amazon isn't slowing down, either. The company reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings Feb. 1 that showed it successfully reined in expenses after laying off 27,000 employees. Amazon shares are up about 78% in the past 12 months. Still, it shows there's an ongoing shuffle among the world's most valuable companies.

In January, for example, Microsoft surpassed Apple to become the most valuable U.S. company by market capitalization, largely on the strength of its cloud partnership with OpenAI and new AI features in Windows and Office.

Nvidia reports quarterly earnings Feb. 21. Analysts expect 118% annual growth in sales to $59.04 billion.

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