Microsoft overtaken as world's most valuable company

Microsoft is a tech giant that has been at the top of the industry for decades.

There has been a longstanding competition between the company and Apple as to who is the world’s most valuable company, so to hear that Microsoft has been knocked from top place, you’d be forgiven for thinking that it’s due to their well known rival.

But it’s not the firm run by Tim Cook who has swiped the number one stop… in fact, you’ve probably never even heard of them.

Microsoft has been at the top of the industry for decades (TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)

The world’s most valuable company is now Nvidia, a software firm that launched in 1993 and makes chips needed for AI.

The business has been gaining a lot of attention in recent months after taking Apple’s spot for second place and has now even surpassed Microsoft.

This is no mean feat for the young company - it’s now worth $3.34 trillion, nearly doubling since the start of the year.

The eccentric man at the helm of the growing business is Jensen Huang.

He formed the firm when he met up with two friends at a Denny’s restaurant in California and has been Nvidia’s CEO since it first launched.

It first formed with just $40,000 but is now officially a giant in the tech industry.

Jensen Huang has been called the 'Taylor Swift of tech' (I-HWA CHENG/AFP via Getty Images)

Meta co-founder Mark Zuckerberg called him the ‘Taylor Swift of tech’ and Huang loves his company so much that he even has the logo tattooed on him.

Interest in AI has grown a lot in recent months and that has seen investors flock to Nvidia to invest in AI.

Microsoft and Apple have been racing to develop AI for their products in order to keep up with the trend and, despite Nvidia being a younger company, it has been developing microchips and adding in machine-learning features since the start.

Talking to NBC News last year, Huang said: “We just believed that someday something new would happen, and the rest of it requires some serendipity.

“It wasn't foresight. The foresight was accelerated computing.”

Nvidia has now become the world's most valuable company (Justin Sullivan/Getty)

Speaking at an event in Copenhagen, Chris Penrose, the global head of business development for telco at Nvidia, said: “The generative AI journey is really transforming businesses and telcos around the world. We’re just at the beginning.”

Nvidia also saw a boost after they made their “stock split” announcement in February this year, which means there will be more shares in the company.

The decision will allow more people to invest and it will reduce the share value as a result.