Nvidia poised to join trillion-dollar valuation league, riding on AI
NEW YORK: Shares in the chip maker Nvidia soared more than 24 percent last Thursday, after the company delivered a knockout quarterly sales outlook powered by demand for the processors that run artificial intelligence systems.
“We’re seeing incredible orders to retool the world’s data centers,” Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, told analysts on a conference call. Nvidia’s chips are used to power AI systems; demand for the chips jumped during the boom in cryptocurrency, whose systems also rely on their processing power. At the close of trading last Wednesday, Nvidia’s market capitalisation hit $755 billion, the fifth-highest public valuation in the US. On Thursday, the company closed in on the trillion-dollar club, at $939 billion.
The AI rally has also lifted other chip stocks, including those for AMD, ASML and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Since the introduction of the ChatGPT chatbot in November, the buzz around AI has intensified, making companies at the forefront of the technology, like Microsoft, Google and Nvidia, a popular pick among investors. The rise in Nvidia’s shares has also propelled the entire market higher, with its surge on Thursday enough to move the S&P 500 stock index up nearly 1 percent. Nvidia’s share price has more than doubled in 2023 even as concerns of a budding microchip war between Washington and Beijing hangs over the sector. Analysts disagree on how long the rally will last. Michael Hartnett of Bank of America called the rise the start of a “baby bubble.” On the other hand, researchers at Goldman Sachs said tools built on AI could help bolster the global economy by $7 trillion.
Demand for Nvidia’s chips is increasing amid calls for greater oversight of AI technology. After meeting with top European Union officials on Wednesday, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Alphabet, promised that Google would work with others to develop AI services responsibly.
And starting in July, New York will require companies that use AI for job recruitment to inform the candidates, under a new law that is being closely watched by labour advocates.