Apple briefly overtakes Nvidia as the world’s most valuable company

In short: Apple briefly moved ahead of Nvidia in market value after Nvidia’s shares fell during a wider tech sell-off tied to AI spending worries.

What happened

Apple briefly leapfrogged Nvidia on Friday to become the world’s most valuable public company, for the first time in more than a year. This ranking is based on market value, which is the company’s share price multiplied by the number of shares (like a rough price tag for the whole company).

Nvidia’s shares fell 2% in New York. The drop came as investors sold technology stocks more broadly after a new AI model from Chinese developer Moonshot, called Kimi K3, raised fresh doubts about Silicon Valley’s huge spending on AI infrastructure. AI infrastructure mainly means chips and data centres, which are large buildings full of computers that run AI systems (like warehouses for computing power).

Apple’s share price was nearly flat, which was enough for it to briefly move ahead as Nvidia slipped. By Friday’s close, Nvidia was valued at about $4.908 trillion, just ahead of Apple at about $4.902 trillion, according to the report.

Some investors see Apple as a safer place to park money during the AI boom because it has not committed to the same level of data centre spending as rivals like Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. Apple shares are up about 20% since late June, helped by optimism about Apple’s AI plans, including a newly shown overhaul of Siri.

Why it matters

These swings show how quickly investor mood can change around AI. For everyday people, it can affect retirement funds and savings that are invested in stock markets, and it may also shape how much big tech companies spend on AI features in products you use.

Source: Financial Times