While Apple historically wins the race to various valuation milestones, I think a different company will beat it to the punch to the $5 trillion level, and no, it isn't Microsoft either. I believe that Nvidia (NVDA 1.75%) will win this race, and thanks to its unwavering growth, it will leave both of these two in the dust in the march toward $5 trillion.
Just how quickly will Nvidia reach that valuation milestone? It may be quicker than you think.
Nvidia is still within a massive growth supercycle
Nvidia's impressive rise can be tied to one trend: artificial intelligence (AI). Nvidia's primary products are graphics processing units (GPUs), which are high-powered computing devices that can process many calculations in parallel. GPUs can also be connected in clusters to amplify this effect, which is why you hear about AI supercomputing clusters being built with more than 100,000 GPUs.
Nvidia is at the top of the GPU world, and most estimates point toward it having roughly a 90% market share. Few companies achieve that level of dominance, and no other company has ever been as dominant in a trend that is as important and quickly growing as AI. Nvidia's is truly an unprecedented story.
That's why some investors (like me, in the past) underestimated Nvidia's potential.
We've barely scratched the surface of what's possible with AI, and AI has yet to be fully integrated into workflows or personal life. This will require an unbelievable amount of computing power, which benefits Nvidia. A report by Dell’Oro Group says that 's data center capital expenditures in 2024 reached $455 billion, and Nvidia believes that number will it $1 trillion by 2028. If that's the case, then Nvidia's growth is far from over, something that its fiscal first-quarter results showcased.
Nvidia's latest results show no signs of a slowdown
One thing that slightly affected Nvidia in the quarter was the loss of its China business. On April 9, the Trump administration established new rules that prevented Nvidia from selling H20 chips designed to meet the United States' previous export restrictions to China. This chip accounted for $4.6 billion of sales in Q1, which ended April 27, and Nvidia missed out on $2.5 billion in additional sales. Furthermore, the company expects about $8 billion in sales to be lost during the second quarter.
This is unfortunate for Nvidia and hampers its growth case, but it provides some interesting numbers. For comparison's sake, let's add the lost $2.5 billion in sales to Q1's total and the $8 billion in Q2's projection. If we do that, these are the following growth rates that Nvidia would be posting (if it meets its guidance):
Quarter | Actual or Projected Revenue | YOY Growth Rate | Adjusted Revenue | Adjusted YOY Growth Rate |
---|---|---|---|---|
Q1 FY 2026 | $44.1 billion | 69% | $46.6 billion | 79% |
Q2 FY 2026 | $45 billion | 71% | $53 billion | 102% |
Data source: Nvidia. Note: YOY = Year over year.
For reference, during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025, Nvidia's growth rate was 78%. This clearly indicates a trend: Growth is accelerating despite Nvidia's massive size if the H20 sales are added back in for a proper comparison. Another point to note is that Nvidia's management tends to beat its internal revenue guidance, so these figures may be a bit conservative.
Regardless, if the U.S. government didn't create some headwinds for Nvidia, its stock would be soaring due to accelerating revenue, but that gets buried behind the China story.
Regardless, I think this is a bullish sign for investors, and this growth will likely persist for some time. Wall Street currently projects Nvidia will grow its revenue by just 26% next year, but I think that is an underprojection. Even if it does match Wall Street's expectations, it will generate around $250 billion in revenue. At Nvidia's current price-to-sales (P/S) ratio, that would value the company at over $5 trillion, so if it meets expectations (which I think it will blow away), it could reach that $5 trillion level as soon as next year.
That growth makes Nvidia a screaming buy right now, as I think there's another growth story kicking off that investors aren't ready for.