Nvidia becomes world's first $5tn company amid stock market and AI boom Nvidia has become the world's first $5tn company, just three months after the Silicon Valley chipmaker was first to break through the barrier of $4tn in market value. In comparison, Nvidia's value is greater than the GDP of India, Japan and the United Kingdom, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Shortly after US stock markets opened on Wednesday, Nvidia's shares touched $207.86 with 24.3bn shares outstanding, putting its market cap at $5.05tn. Ravenous appetite for Nvidia's chips, seen as the most cutting edge in powering artificial intelligence products and software, is the main reason that the company's stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023. The wider US stock market has reached multiple record highs this week, buoyed up by expansive investment in artificial intelligence.

How nervous are investors about the stock market? Every week it seems US financial markets are hit by another bout of fear. The latest worries spread this week from the banking sector in the US, after two regional lenders warned they would be hit by losses from alleged fraud. But before that, markets swooned over signs of rekindled US-China tensions, as the two superpowers face off over tariffs, advanced technology and access to rare earths. The bankruptcies of car parts supplier First Brands and subprime car lender Tricolor acted as a trigger for nervous chatter in September.

Chip giant Nvidia is set to release its latest earnings report – and the results could move the entire US stock market. Over the past two years, the chipmaker has risen to become the world's most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of more than 4 trillion. When Nvidia announces its earnings on Wednesday, investors will get to see how the tech giant has been faring amid the tumult of President Donald Trump's trade salvoes and concerns about whether artificial intelligence has been overhyped. Nvidia specialises in making the graphics processing units (GPUs) that power AI, including the Blackwell B200, marketed as the world's most powerful chip. The California-based company's chips have become essential to the world's largest tech companies, including Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Alphabet, since AI exploded into the mainstream with the release of OpenAI's generative AI chatbot, ChatGPT, in November 2022.

DeepSeek, the blockbuster AI chatbot from Communist China, caused a panic when it launched Monday, triggering the US stock market to hemorrhage 1 trillion. I spent the day asking the chatbot questions, hoping to get an idea of the hype, and while some of its answers were correct, such as 95 percent of global internet traffic flows through undersea cable, others echoed remarks of the communist nation. 'China has developed advanced submarines and underwater drones capable of tapping into these cables to intercept communications,' Deepsake told me. I also watched in real-time as it removed answers or flat-out refused to talk about Tiananmen Square, internment camps and protests in Hong Kong. The chatbot divulged details about how China employs hacking groups to steal American's data and gain access to our sensitive systems.

We are all'algos' now: traders at work in the New York Stock Exchange in May When Bruce Bittles first started trading in the 1960s, the US stock market was a largely human affair. Exchange floors were the chaotic maelstrom of shouts, frantic phone calls and finger waving, later made famous by 1980s films such as Wall Street and Trading Places. But now the machines have taken over. Nasdaq became the world's first electronic stock market when it opened its doors in 1971, but since then, the trading world has been revolutionised several times over. The old bourses and trading pits now are largely shuttered.