Nvidia hits record $5 trillion mark as CEO dismisses AI bubble concerns

On Wednesday, Nvidia became the first company in history to reach a $5 trillion market capitalization, fresh on the heels of a GTC conference keynote in Washington, DC, where CEO Jensen Huang announced $500 billion in AI chip orders and plans to build seven supercomputers for the US government. The milestone comes a mere three months after Nvidia crossed the $4 trillion mark in July, vaulting the company past tech giants like Apple and Microsoft in market valuation but also driving continued fears of an AI investment bubble.

Nvidia’s shares have climbed nearly 12-fold since the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, as the AI boom propelled the S&P 500 to record highs. Shares of Nvidia stock rose 4.6 percent on Wednesday following the Tuesday announcement at the company’s GTC conference. During a Bloomberg Television interview at the event, Huang dismissed concerns about overheated valuations, saying, “I don’t believe we’re in an AI bubble. All of these different AI models we’re using—we’re using plenty of services and paying happily to do it.”

Nvidia expects to ship 20 million units of its latest chips, compared to just 4 million units of the previous Hopper generation over its entire lifetime, Huang said at the conference. The $500 billion figure represents cumulative orders for the company’s Blackwell and Rubin processors through the end of 2026, though Huang noted that his projections did not include potential sales to China.

While it probably feels like glory days for Nvidia at the moment, the success comes with a large dose of caution. Even prior to the latest valuation boom of the past 24 hours, the rapid rise in AI-related investments has fueled persistent concerns that market enthusiasm has outstripped the technology’s ability to deliver immediate economic value.

Some analysts warn that valuations may be overheated. Matthew Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management, told Reuters that “AI’s current expansion relies on a few dominant players financing each other’s capacity. The moment investors start demanding cash flow returns instead of capacity announcements, some of these flywheels could seize.”