The market value of Nvidia, last year’s U.S. stock market star, surpassed the $1.5 trillion mark for the first time on Wednesday as investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence appeared to know no bounds, Markets Insider reported.

Although Nvidia shares rose a modest 1 percent before the U.S. stock market closed Wednesday night, the gain was enough to increase its market capitalization from $1.48 trillion to $1.52 trillion, according to financial advisory firm Refinitive .

That’s because Nvidia stock was trading at $613.62 at the close on the New York Stock Exchange. Overall, the California-based technology company’s share price is up 24% since the start of 2024.

That’s how Nvidia added to its impressive stock market performance last year, when its share price rose nearly 250% on huge interest in ChatGPT and the broader AI space.

Investors have flocked to shares of Nvidia, a company known for years to video game fans mostly for its graphics cards, as it dominates the market for advanced graphics processing units (GPUs), the components used by the AI ​​systems it powers to perform complex calculations. .

Nvidia’s stock price has skyrocketed since the launch of ChatGPT

Building on the huge boost Nvidia AI has received is the fact that on December 23, 2022, a day after OpenAI officially released ChatGPT to the general public, the company’s stock price was just $152 at the close of the New York Stock Exchange. .

In May last year, Nvidia broke the $1 trillion market capitalization mark for the first time, and its success was included in the so-called “magnificent seven” of the US financial markets, along with Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet (the parent company of Google). company), Amazon, Tesla and Meta Platforms.

Buoyed by the prospect of lower interest rates, excitement over the rapid growth of artificial intelligence technology and US economic growth that beat all expectations and recession forecasts, the US stock market experienced a year of record gains in 2023 and in many cases close to all-time highs.

That trend continued earlier this year, despite concerns about the housing market and other structural issues, such as the continued rise of the U.S. public debt, which has reached new record levels.