How Has NVIDIA Become Tech's First US$5tn Company?

In October, NVIDIA reached a milestone no other company has ever achieved – being valued at US$5tn.

Having only reached the US$3tn mark in June 2024, the company’s pivotal role in the AI revolution – a primary driver for the explosive growth and adoption of edge computing – has been a key driver of this exponential growth, as the chipmaker's GPUs power real-time AI processing at data sources, transforming industries from manufacturing to autonomous vehicles.

NVIDIA’s journey to an AI leader

NVIDIA first reached a valuation in the billions in June 2023, growing to the US$4tn mark in July 2025.

Three months later, it hit US$5tn.

From the perspective of Founder, President and CEO Jensen Huang, this momentum shows no sign of slowing down.

He has announced US$500bn in AI chip orders through 2026, driven by hyperscalers including Microsoft and Oracle investing more than US$549bn in AI data centres in 2025.

Jensen tied this to real demand, saying NVIDIA plans to “deliver a total of US$500bn from Rubin and Blackwell in 2025 and 2026”, boosting data centre GPU revenue significantly. 

“We are going through a platform shift,” Jensen says.

“That shift is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to get back into the game for us to start innovating with American technology.”

Speaking at GTC Washington DC, Jensen detailed partnerships in 6G, supercomputers and autonomous vehicles, continuing to fuel NVIDIA’s valuation surge.

The firm’s data centre business – which contributed 92% to US GDP growth at the start of last year – relies on GPUs for LLMs, with partnerships including Nokia for 5G and Uber for AI logistics amplifying edge strategies.​

Bolstered by a US$1bn 6G partnership with Nokia using NVIDIA Aerial RAN Computer (ARC) – built on Grace CPU, Blackwell GPU and Mellanox networking – the solutions underpin AI-powered edge connectivity.

Justin Hotard, President and CEO of Nokia, says: “The next leap in telecom isn’t just from 5G to 6G, it’s a fundamental redesign of the network to deliver AI-powered connectivity, capable of processing intelligence from the data centre all the way to the edge.”

NVIDIA and the edge computing revolution

NVIDIA leads with platforms such as Jetson and EGX for AI inference at the edge – from factory floors to hospitals and vehicles – delivering low-latency insights via computer vision and robotics.

ARC extends this to telecom base stations, enabling software-defined AI processing globally. Jetson modules process 4K video on 5-10 watts, EGX pairs CUDA with Kubernetes for hybrid edge-cloud in safety-critical apps.

Jensen’s vision integrates edge into AI factories, with BlueField-4 chips enhancing efficiency.

Energy savings support sustainable deployments in constrained environments.​

NVIDIA’s edge computing platforms are driving transformative results across industries, powering real-time AI at the source.

Seagate’s deployment of NVIDIA EGX for disk inspection exemplifies this, yielding 10% throughput gains and 300% ROI through defect detection beyond human limits.

In mobility, NVIDIA’s Drive Hyperion and Cosmos are enabling Uber’s 100,000 Level-4 autonomous vehicles by 2027.

Dara Khosrowshahi, CEO of Uber, says: “NVIDIA is the backbone of the AI era and is now fully harnessing that innovation to unleash L4 autonomy at enormous scale, while making it easier for NVIDIA-empowered AVs to be deployed on Uber.

“Autonomous mobility will transform our cities for the better and we’re thrilled to partner with NVIDIA to help make that vision a reality.”

These edge solutions extend to national infrastructure and enterprise AI, with NVIDIA equipping seven Department of Energy supercomputers for scientific advancement, integrating NVQLink to fuse quantum processors with GPUs via CUDA-Q for hybrid edge simulations.

Palantir’s partnership leverages NVIDIA's CUDA-X and Nemotron models in its Ontology.

“Palantir is focused on deploying AI that delivers immediate, asymmetric value to our customers,” says Alex Karp, Co-Founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies.

“We are proud to partner with NVIDIA to fuse our AI-driven decision intelligence systems with the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure.”

NVIDIA’s edge ecosystem delivers low-latency, real-time AI that slashes cloud dependency and unlocks transformative efficiency.

As a major propeller of the company’s US$5tn valuation, this continues to cement its role as the definitive architect of edge computing in the AI era – not just from a valuation standpoint but across its deployments worldwide.