At the end of 2022, a month after OpenAI launched ChatGPT, Nvidia was worth about $360 billion on the stock market. In September 2026 it’s worth about $5.5 trillion and it’s the most valuable company in the world. In less than four years, artificial intelligence created one of the biggest waves of wealth in history. Who took it home?
Wealth in AI is measured in two ways: what a public company is worth on the stock market (its market capitalization) and what investors say a private company is worth in its latest funding round (its valuation). I’ll walk you through it in two teams, hardware and software, with round numbers and dates. And this isn’t investment advice: it’s so you understand who’s behind the tools you use.
Hardware: the ones selling the shovels
In the gold rush, many of the people who made the most money didn’t find gold: they sold the shovels. In AI, the shovels are the chips, and every model runs on them.
| Company | What it sells | Approximate value (September 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Nvidia | The chips (GPUs) that train and run AI | $5.5 trillion, the world’s most valuable company |
| TSMC | Manufactures the chips for Nvidia and most of the industry | $2.3 trillion |
| Broadcom | Custom chips and networking for data centers | $1.7 trillion |
| SK Hynix | High-speed memory (HBM) for AI chips | About $1 trillion |
Samsung and Micron, the other two memory giants, also crossed $1 trillion in May 2026. And Nvidia went from about $360 billion to about $5.5 trillion: roughly 15 times bigger.
Software: the ones building the models
There are two groups here: the giants that were already public and the private labs that were born or took off with AI.
| Company | Its AI | Approximate value (September 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Alphabet (Google) | Gemini and Google Cloud | $4.1 trillion |
| Microsoft | Copilot, Azure and its partnership with OpenAI | $3.7 trillion |
| Amazon | The AWS cloud and its investment in Anthropic | $2.8 trillion |
| Lab | Its AI | Valuation in its latest round |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Claude | $965 billion (May 2026) |
| OpenAI | ChatGPT | $852 billion (March 2026) |
| xAI | Grok | About $250 billion when it merged with SpaceX (February 2026) |
The labs’ jump is even bigger than Nvidia’s. In early 2023, OpenAI was worth about $29 billion and Anthropic about $4 billion. Today OpenAI is worth about 29 times more, and Anthropic, the company behind Claude (the AI I use every day), more than 200 times more.
The timeline, year by year
2022
- November 30: OpenAI launches ChatGPT.
2023
- January: Microsoft announces a multibillion-dollar investment in OpenAI (reported at about $10 billion).
- May 30: Nvidia reaches $1 trillion, the first chipmaker to do it.
- September and October: Amazon (up to $4 billion) and Google (up to $2 billion) bet on Anthropic.
2024
- February: Nvidia passes $2 trillion.
- June: Nvidia reaches $3 trillion and, for a few days, is the most valuable company in the world.
- October: OpenAI raises $6.6 billion at a $157 billion valuation.
2025
- January 27: “DeepSeek Monday.” A much cheaper Chinese model spooks the market and Nvidia loses about $590 billion in a single day, the biggest one-day loss for any company in U.S. stock market history.
- March: Anthropic reaches $61.5 billion, and OpenAI raises $40 billion at a $300 billion valuation.
- July 9: Nvidia becomes the first company worth $4 trillion.
- September: Anthropic reaches $183 billion.
- October: OpenAI reaches $500 billion in a sale of employee shares, and on October 29 Nvidia becomes the first company worth $5 trillion.
2026
- February: SpaceX absorbs xAI in the biggest merger in history ($1.25 trillion combined), and Anthropic raises $30 billion at a $380 billion valuation.
- March: OpenAI raises $122 billion at an $852 billion valuation.
- May: Samsung, Micron and SK Hynix join the trillion-dollar club. Anthropic raises $65 billion at a $965 billion valuation and passes OpenAI as the most valuable AI startup.
- June: Anthropic and OpenAI confidentially file to go public.
- July: Apple passes Nvidia for a few days as the most valuable company in the world.
- September: Nvidia is back on top at about $5.5 trillion, and OpenAI is reportedly weighing a new round at up to $1.5 trillion.
What this means for your business
All that wealth sits in a handful of companies, but what they sell reaches your business through a monthly subscription. The same models that attracted hundreds of billions of dollars are the ones you use from your phone. The opportunity for a small business isn’t guessing which stock will go up: it’s putting those tools to work on your everyday tasks.
Do the math: if three people on your team each save two hours a week with an AI assistant, that’s six hours a week, more than 300 hours a year. That’s the part of the wealth in AI that is yours to take.
If you want to understand why Nvidia’s chips became so important, read about deep learning; and if you’re wondering where all of this runs, here I explain cloud AI.
Your judgment is still in charge
- This isn’t investment advice. Stock prices change every day, and a private company’s valuation comes from a round among a few investors. If you’re thinking about investing, talk to a licensed financial advisor.
- There’s a debate. Some analysts talk about a bubble and others say this is just getting started. Nobody knows for sure.
- Be careful with promises to get rich with AI. The wealth in these tables was built by companies that invested billions over years.
Start with one goal
You don’t need to be Nvidia to win with AI. Pick one task that eats your team’s time and hand it to an AI tool this week. I see it every day: AI doesn’t make you smarter, it makes you more efficient, and the time it gives back is yours to sell, serve your customers or rest.
Want these tools compared in depth? Check the unbiased reviews.
