Nvidia jumps past Microsoft to become the world's most valuable company

• Nvidia on Tuesday claimed the spot of the world's most valuable company.
• Shares of the chipmaker rose 4%, helping it edge past Microsoft's market cap.

Nvidia stock rose 4% on Tuesday, helping push its market capitalization past that of Microsoft to claim the title of the world's most valuable company.

The chipmaker on Tuesday boasted a market value of $3.338 trillion, edging out Microsoft's $3.326 trillion market cap by just $12 billion.

Nvidia stock hit an intraday high of $136.25 Tuesday afternoon.

That equates to a split-adjusted price of $1,362.50. Nvidia underwent a 10-for-one stock split earlier this month.

It's already been a wild ride for the chipmaker in 2024, with the stock soaring 173%. That's after the stock rallied more than 200% in 2023.

Still, Wall Street remains bullish and is eyeing even more gains, with one analyst expecting a $10 trillion valuation for the company by the end of 2030.

The company, whose chips have been powering the artificial-intelligence boom since ChatGPT was unveiled in 2022, beat out Apple as the second-biggest company less than a month ago.

A lot has been going right for Nvidia recently.

The stock's meteoric rise is set to spark a massive reshuffle of a $72 billion tech exchange-traded fund later this month, which should result in buying pressure of about $11 billion for Nvidia stock.

But more importantly, Nvidia's earnings have been booming.

While the stock has soared just over 700% since ChatGPT was released on November 30, 2022, the company's underlying valuation multiple has declined, signaling that its earnings are growing faster than its stock price.

Nvidia had a forward price-to-earnings multiple of about 50 times in November 2022, compared with about 40 times today.

One concern for Nvidia investors has been the potential for competition to eat away at Nvidia's recent gains, but that has yet to materialize.

Nvidia's closest competitor, AMD, expects to generate about $4 billion in revenue from its AI graphics processing unit this year. Meanwhile, Nvidia is set to generate upward of $120 billion in revenue this year, mostly from its AI chips.