In December 2015, a loose group of researchers, engineers, and tech company leaders that included Sam Altman and Elon Musk came together in a San Francisco living room to articulate a vision for artificial intelligence (AI) that might actually benefit humanity one day.
A decade later, the fruits of that meeting are starting to surface in the real world.
One of the companies that has profited the most from that vision is "Magnificent Seven" powerhouse Nvidia (NVDA +2.92%). In the last decade, the hardware giant has evolved from a company best known for gaming GPUs into a trillion-dollar club member that's leading the AI infrastructure buildout.
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
Considering that 10 years ago, Nvidia had a roughly $17 billion market cap, you'd probably expect a $10,000 investment made in it then to be worth a small fortune today.
But just how much it would be worth might make you do a double-take.
Image source: Nvidia.
A gain of over 22,000%
If you had invested $10,000 in Nvidia 10 years ago and held on through all the flat, rocky, and exhilarating years that followed, your current investment would be worth well over $2.2 million.
To put that into perspective, if you had invested the same amount in any of the other six Magnificent Seven stocks -- Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Tesla -- your returns would have been impressive, but nowhere close to what the chipmaker delivered.
NVDA Total Return Level data by YCharts.
Nvidia has earned its crown. For investors who believe AI spending will continue to climb, the stock remains a top pick to consider buying.
