Nvidia Momentarily Tops Apple

Nvidia stocks' rally Friday pushed its value briefly to $3.53 trillion, passing Apple to become the most valuable company in the world. The rally was driven by demand for Nvidia's specialized artificial intelligence chips, NBC News reports. Apple was sitting at $3.52 trillion. At the end of Friday trading, Nvidia was up 0.8%, with a market value of $3.47 trillion; Apple shares had risen 0.4% with company value holding at $3.52 trillion. Microsoft's trailed with a market value of $3.18 trillion, as its stock edged up 0.8%.

The market capitalizations of Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft have been running close for months. The other two passed up Nvidia earlier, after it became No. 1 for a day in June. Nvidia shares have shot up about 18% this month, after OpenAI announced a new funding round of $6.6 billion. Unless the economy stumbles, an analyst for AJ Bell said, companies appear likely to keep investing heavily in AI, "creating a healthy tailwind for Nvidia." MarketWatch charts Nvidia's climb here. (More Nvidia stories.)