Driven by the trend of artificial intelligence (AI), the stock price of NVIDIA, the biggest beneficiary, has been soaring all the way. It now seems that it may soon surpass Apple to become the second highest valued company in the world, which is relatively lagging behind in the field of artificial intelligence.
Almost all artificial intelligence applications, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, rely on Nvidia's high-end chips, which has almost doubled the company's stock price in the past year, with a current market value of $270 trillion, only $250 billion less than Apple's.
Although the stock's rise was hit by a series of "shocks" in the second half of the week, with a slight pullback from the historical high set earlier this week, given its position as the "leading AI company", it is not impossible to snatch the "TOP 2" throne from Apple now.
Wall Street analysts have never concealed their optimism about Nvidia. I/O Fund technology analyst Beth Kinding recently stated that the stock's upward trend is far from over. She predicts that Nvidia's stock price will soar 258% from its current level by 2030, with a market value of $10 trillion, thanks to its indestructible moat.
By contrast, earlier this year Apple gave up its position as the "Top 1 Market Value" to Microsoft, a once thriving company that is struggling to cope with weak demand for iPhones and fierce competition in the Chinese market. Its current market value is $2.95 trillion, second only to Microsoft's $3.09 trillion.
Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management, said, "This is certainly worth noting because Apple has long dominated, especially in growth and innovation. But recently, Apple's innovation curve seems to have flattened, indicating a slowdown in future growth."
"On the other hand, Nvidia is able to capture wave after wave of growth. Starting with gaming demand, then cryptocurrency, and now artificial intelligence, they have been able to perfectly match innovation with demand, which is equivalent to explosive growth," he added.
This semiconductor company has a significant weight in the S&P 500 and NASDAQ indexes and has played a key role in driving the US stock market to new highs. More than one-third of the increase in the S&P 500 index this year comes from Nvidia.
Apple's turnaround
Of course, Apple is not without a chance of winning, although so far, the company has not had any disruptive achievements in the AI field, clearly lagging behind other tech giants. But according to Dan Ives, a renowned strategist at the US investment bank Wedbush, this is Apple's first turning point at the upcoming World Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 10th.
According to Ives, WWDC is "the most important event in the decade" as Apple is preparing to release a range of artificial intelligence products.
"In our view, introducing artificial intelligence into its crucial developer community and laying the foundation for bringing generative artificial intelligence to consumers starts with Apple." He added that he also expects Apple to announce a partnership with OpenAI.
The second turning point for Apple is undoubtedly the upcoming iPhone 16.
Aives stated that all of these features may be integrated into the upcoming iPhone 16 release in September, which could trigger a "growth revival" as more and more people upgrade their iPhones. He predicts that the upgrade cycle for the iPhone may exceed 270 million units.
In addition, Steve Eisman, the prototype of the movie "Big Bear," also believes that Apple is a potential winner in the AI craze. He explained that in the long run, Apple will become a key center for artificial intelligence dominated software, bringing huge growth potential to its products.
"I am well aware that when all these applications appear, I need a new phone, a new iPad, and a new laptop. Therefore, when these applications appear, the biggest beneficiary may be Apple," he said.
Bank of America pointed out that smartphones will require more powerful computing power to handle the daily use of artificial intelligence applications, which means the best opportunity for smartphone manufacturers to "upgrade" and drive 2.2 billion active smartphone users into the artificial intelligence stage. And Apple will inherit this "extraordinary wealth", and its valuation will become even higher.
The bank also stated that one of the key to the success of artificial intelligence smartphones is the development of artificial intelligence application developers. And it believes that developers will develop a large number of artificial intelligence applications running on Apple phones, thereby creating new profit points for Apple.