Technology

Nvidia Market Cap Near $1.8 Trillion, Bigger Than South Korea's GDP

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: February 22, 2024 7:15 am

After another surge after Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) posted spectacular earnings, the Nvidia market cap will likely be near $1.8 trillion. That will top Alphabet, owner of Google, and Amazon. It will also make CEO Jen-Hsun Huang one of the 25 richest people in the world, according to the Bloomberg real-time billionaire list.

The $1.8 trillion will make the Nvidia market cap slightly larger than the gross domestic products of Australia and South Korea. Each is about $1.7 billion. South Korea has a population of about 51 million people. Nvidia has about 26,000 workers, and Australia’s population is near 26 million. Australia’s GDP is growing by 2.6%, while South Korea’s GDP growth is 3.5%. In terms of market cap, a $1,000 investment in Nvidia shares 10 years ago would be worth $149,000 today.

Nvidia posted earnings that were better than Wall Street forecasts and nothing short of spectacular. Revenue was up 265% year over year to $22.1 billion. Net income rose 769% to $12.3 billion. Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said, “Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point. Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations.” It is an extraordinary dominance. Rival AMD will be well behind in development and sales. Nvidia expects equally strong results in the current quarter with revenue of $24 billion. Its sales engine is not even slowing. (This is how much Nvidia’s top executives made in 2023.)

Nvidia’s stock price says more about the growing footprint of artificial intelligence (AI), which may be the most important technical advance in history ahead of the operating system, computer, or smartphone. AI could affect the lives of almost every person in the world, advancing productivity, quality of life, environment, and educational attainment. In other words, its effects could reach billions of people. This means Nvidia’s revenue could move well into the hundreds of billions of dollars, perhaps eclipsing the revenue of every tech company in the world.

Nvidia may be the first tech company to change the world and its population radically.