Nvidia Faces Challenge to Top Spot as World's Most Valuable Company, Report Suggests

Google Closes Gap with Nvidia in the Race for Most Valuable Publicly Listed Company

Alphabet's Google is rapidly closing the gap with Nvidia in the race to become the world's most valuable publicly listed company for the first time in over a decade. According to a new report by Barron's, Google's market capitalisation is approaching $4.65 trillion after shares surged more than 140% over the past year. This marks a striking shift in the fortunes of one of the world's most recognisable technology companies, whose shares have risen more than 140% over the past year, a pace nearly four times the gain posted over the preceding four years.

Google's stock now carries a market capitalisation of approximately $4.64 trillion, having added more than $2.6 trillion in value over the past year and nearly $900 billion since January alone. In contrast, Nvidia currently holds the title of the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of $4.85 trillion.

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Based on recent trading momentum, the two companies could be separated by a razor-thin margin when Nvidia reports its first quarter earnings on 20 May. Nvidia's average daily gain last month stood at approximately 0.66%, compared to 1.42% for Google. Should those trajectories hold through May, Nvidia would hold only a $190 million lead over Google in market value at the time of its earnings update, according to Barron's calculations.

Google's shares were last marked at $381.80 each in late Friday trading, a marginal slip of 0.04%, giving Alphabet a market value of $4.65 trillion. Nvidia edged 0.2% higher to $199.99 per share, placing its market capitalisation just above $4.86 trillion.

The driving force behind Google's resurgence is its deepening integration of artificial intelligence across its three principal business divisions: internet search, YouTube, and Google Cloud. The company has spent $144 billion on capital expenditure over the past two years, with a further $490 billion allocated for the two years ahead. Google Cloud's order backlog grew by nearly $220 billion in the most recent quarter, reaching a record high of $462 billion, according to Barron's.

The latest quarterly results "reinforces our view that Google is a top AI play, with increasing search usage, improving ad targeting, durable cloud advantages, and growing subscription revenue from Gemini," said an analyst. "We think AI tailwinds for search are still in early stages and future LLM improvements will drive durable growth."

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Google last held the top spot in the S&P 500 market capitalisation rankings in February 2016, when it briefly overtook Apple following a stronger than expected fourth quarter earnings report that lifted its total value to $560 billion. That reign lasted just two days before Apple reclaimed its position on 3 February.

With the biggest US technology earnings of the current cycle now reported, only Nvidia and Broadcom remain to publish results over the next two months, leaving the field relatively open for Alphabet's market capitalisation to advance further. Nvidia's next generation Vera Rubin chips are expected to begin shipping in the second half of this year, providing fresh impetus to a business already forecast to deliver revenue growth of 77% for the April quarter, according to Barron's.