Nvidia (NVDA +1.73%) is widely considered the most dominant “pick-and-shovel” maker in the artificial intelligence (AI) gold rush. Indeed, if you asked an AI chatbot, like Gemini or Claude, a question today, there’s a good chance Nvidia’s technology was doing most of the heavy lifting to provide you with an answer.
The company makes super-fast brains for computers (called graphics processing units, or GPUs) that help teach AI how to think. Since no other company’s chips compare to Nvidia’s, the chipmaker’s sales have been growing like weeds.
Nvidia’s full-year revenue in 2025 was $130 billion. Not only is that larger than the GDPs of over 100 countries, but it’s also 2,500% higher than its 2016 revenue ($5 billion).
Image source: Nvidia.
How did Nvidia stock fare over that 10-year period?
Mightily good, if you ask me. In 2016, the company had a market cap of about $20 billion. Today, it boasts the world’s highest market cap at more than $5 trillion — a staggering 27,000% increase from a decade ago.
Nvidia
Today’s Change
(1.73%) $3.66
Current Price
$215.16
If you had had the foresight to invest $5,000 in Nvidia 10 years ago, you would be a millionaire today. You would have also crushed almost every other megacap tech stock over that same stretch.
Data by YCharts
Truth be told, Nvidia isn’t richly valued. The stock trades at about 24 times forward earnings, which is only slightly higher than the average for tech stocks (22.7).
It’s a stock that continues to surprise. And with AI tailwinds blowing strong, Nvidia may still have a ways to go.