Nvidia is poised to open trading on Wednesday with a market capitalization above $5 trillion, becoming the first company in history to reach that milestone. The achievement crowns an extraordinary rally that has made Nvidia a central pillar of the global artificial intelligence boom.

Shares of the U.S. tech giant jumped 2.8% in pre-market trading, following CEO Jensen Huang’s announcement of $500 billion in AI chip orders and plans to build seven supercomputers for the U.S. government.

According to Reuters, this marks Nvidia’s spectacular transformation from a maker of specialized graphics processors into a cornerstone of the global AI industry — surpassing tech titans such as Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet in market value, and turning Huang into a symbol of Silicon Valley’s new era.

The new record comes just months after Nvidia reached $4 trillion in July, demonstrating an unprecedented growth rate in modern financial markets. Analysts say the rally reflects investors’ confidence that AI-related spending will continue to expand across all industries, though some warn of potentially inflated valuations.

A Geopolitical “Weapon” for Washington

Nvidia’s dominance has also drawn the attention of regulators. U.S. export restrictions on advanced chips to China have made the company a key instrument in Washington’s geopolitical strategy.

Huang’s announcements at Nvidia’s annual developer conference in Washington strengthened investor confidence in the company’s leadership role within the AI ecosystem. One of the planned supercomputers — built in collaboration with Oracle — will feature 100,000 Nvidia Blackwell chips.

These Blackwell chips have become a flashpoint in U.S.-China relations, with Donald Trump reportedly saying he intends to raise the issue in his upcoming meeting with Xi Jinping.

Meanwhile, Apple and Microsoft, both of which surpassed $4 trillion in market value earlier this year, remain formidable rivals — Apple driven by strong iPhone 17 sales and Microsoft by a $135 billion revaluation of its stake in OpenAI.