Apple briefly tops Nvidia as world’s most valuable company in AI shift

Apple briefly passed Nvidia to become the world’s most valuable company on Friday as the tech titans jostled for the top spot as investors reconsider the outlook for investments in AI.

Apple’s market cap topped Nvidia’s early Friday as the latter saw shares slide along with other chipmaker stocks as investors continue to evaluate whether tech firms’ rapid buildout of AI tools and the data centers needed to support them will yield near-term profits.

The consumer tech giant saw its market cap rise to more than $4.91 trillion, above Nvidia’s $4.9 trillion at the time.

Shares in the iPhone-maker pulled back some of their earlier gains, which allowed Nvidia to regain the top spot before the closing bell as shares in the world’s leading AI chip designer pared their losses and lifted the firm’s valuation.

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As of Friday’s closing bell, Nvidia’s market cap reclaimed the title of the world’s largest at $4.92 trillion, narrowly topping Apple’s $4.89 trillion. Apple shares rose 0.14% while Nvidia’s fell 2.21% during the trading session.

The shifts in the pecking order of tech leaders in the so-called Magnificent 7 stocks comes as investors are looking at stocks beyond the obvious winners of the AI race like Nvidia, which has held the title of largest market cap for nearly a year. Apple’s move on Friday briefly made it the leader for the first time since April 2025.

Investors are considering the costs and benefits of companies spending to build AI models and data centers used to power them, as well as the means at their disposal to turn AI tools into meaningful revenue drivers.

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“Apple was seen as a laggard in the AI race because it wasn’t spending to develop models, but now sentiment has changed,” said Toni Meadows, head of investment at BRI Wealth Management.

“Apple is less exposed to capex intensity and better positioned to monetize AI via services, ecosystem lock-in, and hardware upgrades. The re-rating reflects confidence in earnings durability rather than speculative AI upside,” Meadows added.

The market is expected to see more options in the AI space become available for investors this year, with the anticipated IPOs of Anthropic and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI.

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South Korea’s SK Hynix also listed on the Nasdaq earlier this month, bringing another memory chipmaker into the consideration of investors evaluating the AI space.

Hynix’s move followed the success Micron has enjoyed this year that lifted the chipmaker above $1 trillion in market cap.

“The new entrants to the market could spread out the focus away from the pure Magnificent Seven names into a wider number of names,” said Benjamin Hall, VP of alpha research at Segal Macro Advisors.

Reuters contributed to this report.