Chip maker NVidia worth as much as Amazon thanks to AI boom

Rob Beschizza

3:48 am Tue, Feb 13, 2024

Famed for its graphics cards, formerly the realm of gamers and various sorts of graphics professional, the AI boom ensured that NVidia caught and briefly surpassed Amazon as the world's fifth-largest company by market capitalization yesterday. Both companies are worth a little under 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars.

Blowout quarterly results and strong forecasts from Nvidia a year ago established that the chip designer was at pole position in supplying to tech companies working on so-called generative AI like chatbots and image creation.
The bet on strong AI demand has supercharged Nvidia shares, making it the best performing stock among the so-called "Magnificent Seven" with a 223% surge over the past 12 months.

On one hand, NVidia makes tools for businesses and the strength should move to those customer-facing companies once the dust settles and it's clear what "AI boom" applications are succeeding. On the other hand, Amazon and Google are deep in stage 3 enshittification and if AI helps them accomplish that then we're sailing the consumerism shit supernova anyway.