Nvidia becomes first publicly-traded company to hit $4 trillion

(CNN, KYMA/KECY) - Nvidia became the first publicly-traded company to hit $4 trillion in market value Wednesday.

The U.S. chipmaker reached and passed the milestone when its stock rose 2.5% at the open of the trading day and it beat Apple and Microsoft to the milestone.

Nvidia stock is up about 20% this year thanks to its leading role powering the AI boom, and effects from the U.S.-China tech war haven't been as bad as expected.

Apple entered this year as the world’s most valuable company at about $3.9 trillion, but it fell off in recent months amid President Donald Trump's tariff turmoil.

Recently, Nvidia and Microsoft traded places as the world's most valuable company.

Nvidia's chips power the data centers companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google need to fuel their AI models and cloud services, and AI investments are only expected to grow.

An industry analyst last month said Nvidia is the company who represents the foundation for the AI revolution.