In October, technology giant Nvidia became the first company in its history to briefly surpass a $5 trillion valuation, thanks to its role in the AI boom.
Insatiable demand for its AI chips from global enterprises has helped it solidify its dominance in data center chip sales with an 81% market share, according to research from International Data Corporation. That, in turn, fueled explosive growth in Nvidia stock (NVDA), which has soared 12x since the breakthrough release of OpenAI’s AI chatbot ChatGPT in November 2022.
Nvidia’s October quarter sales and profits surged more than 60% from a year earlier, beating Wall Street expectations. Last month, the company announced its next-generation Vera Rubin chip, which is widely seen as the company’s next growth driver. Nvidia currently expects total sales to reach a new record in 2026, with revenue of approximately $500 billion.
Still, the tech giant faces a growing array of challenges, from increased competition to lingering concerns about an AI bubble to relentless pressure to prove growth after an explosive quarter.
Here’s a look at Nvidia’s success in four graphics areas.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang founded the company in 1993 with a focus on chips known as graphics processing units for video games. It was then discovered that the GPU was suitable for AI training.
But the company’s breakthrough moment didn’t come until after ChatGPT arrived in late 2022, widely considered the beginning of today’s AI boom.
Nvidia’s stock price has soared, and the AI giant will become the world’s ninth company to be valued at $1 trillion in 2023, 30 years after its founding. Although the AI giant has shed some value in recent months, it remains the world’s most valuable company.
But Nvidia’s secret sauce isn’t just the GPU. We also offer full server racks equipped with other types of chips important for AI workloads and software that allows developers to adjust their code to get the most out of the chips. The company is currently laying the foundations for a future data center it calls an “AI factory.” The company is also trying to position itself at the center of emerging technologies such as robots, quantum computers and self-driving cars. Last year, the company announced a partnership with Uber to develop self-driving cars and a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a quantum supercomputer powered by its AI chips.
For much of 2025, the company, like other big tech companies, scrambled to close deals and pour in investment. Nvidia announced in April that it plans to work with U.S. partners to build a $500 billion AI infrastructure. In September, Nvidia invested $5 billion in Intel to develop custom data centers. A few days later, Nvidia announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI under which it plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI to expand the capacity of its AI data centers built around its chips. Despite recent reports of friction between the two AI giants, executives from both companies have since publicly stated that they remain committed to the deal.
As Nvidia’s chips become the backbone of the global AI industry, the company’s partnerships have expanded far beyond North America. In Europe, Nvidia is working with telecom companies and governments in France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom to deploy sovereign AI infrastructure and build AI technology centers. In South Korea, more than 26,000 chips have been installed in cooperation with the government and companies.
But bubble concerns have clouded the outlook for AI, and Hwang has repeatedly dismissed them. At the same time, NVIDIA faces increasing pressure from rivals such as AMD and customers who are developing their own chips to reduce dependence on the industry’s dominant suppliers.
In China, once a major market for Nvidia, U.S. technology regulations have restricted exports of the company’s cutting-edge chips, severely impacting sales in the world’s second-largest economy. Mr. Huang succeeded in persuading President Donald Trump to lift some restrictions and allow the sale of the second-most powerful chip, but the Chinese government has not yet confirmed whether it will allow its companies to buy the chip.
Despite these concerns, Nvidia and Huang didn’t stop. The company’s new Rubin chip is currently in production and expected to arrive in late 2026. Major cloud providers such as Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and CoreWeave will be the first to deploy the chip.
In an effort to diversify Nvidia’s business, Huang also rolled out new AI models for autonomous driving and robotics, deepening the company’s push to become a major player in those areas.
“Our vision is that one day every car and every truck will be self-driving,” he said.
