Nvidia Flips Amazon In Market Cap Riding High On AI

Chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) has overtaken online retailer and cloud computing infrastructure provider Amazon (AMZN) in market cap, a symbolic flip that nonetheless epitomizes the bullish hype around artificial intelligence.

While the pair switched spots briefly on Monday, this is the first time their respective market caps held until the end of the trading day.

Nvidia’s market cap at the close of the U.S. markets on Tuesday was $1.78 trillion, built on an average daily trade volume of $47.85 million over the past month. Amazon closed at $1.75 trillion on $49.75 million in daily trades.

Both tech titans’ stock ended the day down, Amazon dipping 3.7% to $168.64, and Nvidia receding 1.2% to $721.28. But both have been booming as of late.

Amazon has enjoyed broad billing as a top-five U.S. tech stock, counted among the so-called “FAANG” set (Facebook, Apple, Netflix, and Google), although the acronym has shifted to MAMAA as the companies changed names. But Nvidia has been closing in fast, the Decrypt Emerge 2023 Company of the Year seeing double-digit stock gains last summer, its market cap surpassing all of crypto in the fall.

This year alone, NVDA is up 45 percent. And other chip makers building for AI have also seen their fortunes rise.

Last week, Amazon’s head of AWS cloud computing said that AI-based companies are “overhyped,” and compared the present to the dot-com bubble and bust at the turn of the century. Even so, its bottom line has been boosted by strong AI investments across sectors, the company’s quarterly financial results citing myriad AI clients and projects.

If today’s flip holds, Nvidia may next set its sights on the bronze medal, currently held by Google (GOOG), with a market cap of $1.81 trillion.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.