NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang gestures during the NVIDIA GTC global AI conference in San Jose, California, U.S. March 17, 2026.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
Nvidia shares closed at a record on Friday for the first time since October, pushing the company’s market cap past $5 trillion, as investors piled into the AI chip trade ahead of earnings next week from tech’s hyperscalers.
The stock rose 4.3% to close at $208.27. Nvidia is up more than 14-fold since the end of 2022, driven by soaring demand for artificial intelligence services and models. Nvidia’s graphics processing units are relied on by Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon as well as model developers OpenAI and Anthropic.
Friday’s rally was sparked by better-than-expected earnings late Thursday from chipmaker Intel, which has largely been left out of the AI market until recently. Intel shares spiked 24%, their best performance since 1987.
Advanced Micro Devices, which competes with Nvidia and Intel, jumped 14%, while mobile device chipmaker Qualcomm climbed 11%.
Investors had been pulling back on large-cap technology stocks as oil prices were skyrocketing due to the war in Iran and supply chain disruptions that followed. But wide swaths of technology are back in favor of late, with demand for AI infrastructure showing no signs of slowing.
The Nasdaq is now up 15% in April, headed for its best month since April 2020.
Nvidia does face increasing competition in AI. Alphabet, a major Nvidia customer, announced new chips that will try to take on Nvidia’s offerings when they become available to cloud customers later this year.
