On November 2, according to Bloomberg, this was an unusual week even for Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Huang hosted the Nvidia Developer Conference in Washington for the first time on Tuesday and appeared in South Korea over the weekend, where he had dinner with the heads of Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor Group, eating fried chicken and drinking beer. During this period, he also reached multiple cooperation agreements with Nokia, Uber, Eli Lilly and other companies.
Jen-Hsun Huang in South Korea
In the past five trading days, Nvidia's market value has soared by nearly US$400 billion (approximately 2.8 trillion yuan), surpassing the market value of Toyota Motor and Home Depot, becoming the first US$5 trillion company in history. According to estimates from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Huang's personal wealth also increased by more than US$9 billion, reaching nearly US$176 billion.
Huang, 62, is committed to accelerating the popularity of AI around the world and letting Nvidia's technology penetrate every corner of the economy. At the same time, Huang is trying to prove to Wall Street doubters who warn of an AI bubble: Trillions of dollars in infrastructure investments, including Nvidia's vaunted chips, will soon pay off.
“NVIDIA is using real money to deliver on its promises,” said JoAnne Feeney, a partner and portfolio manager at Advisors Capital Management, which holds NVIDIA shares. “They are trying to use specific cases to show the practical applications of AI and how these applications can be transformed into real business value.”
NVIDIA’s road to $5 trillion market value
The series of investments and cooperation announced by Nvidia recently are expected to connect its AI chips and software to a wider range of industries, from telecommunications, transportation to healthcare. This will help Nvidia reduce its dependence on technology giants such as Microsoft and Meta. These companies' data centers contribute about half of Nvidia's revenue, and their huge spending has also raised concerns about an AI bubble.
After flying to South Korea from Washington, Huang Renxun continued to win orders.On Friday, he announced that he would supply more than 260,000 AI chips to Samsung, Hyundai, SK Group and the South Korean government.Previously, he toasted with Samsung Chairman Jay Y Lee and Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun at a fried chicken restaurant in Seoul. These agreements further expand NVIDIA’s rapidly growing overseas AI and data center business this year. Previously, Yingwei has reached important cooperation in the United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Nvidia's series of actions this week have been largely orchestrated to echo U.S. President Donald Trump's "America First" policy of pushing for increased domestic investment, especially the construction of advanced factories, while exporting more U.S. technology to allies and trading partners. Huang went out of his way to praise Trump's economic plan and pointed to Nvidia's commitment to producing chips designed with its cutting-edge Blackwell architecture in the United States, which will be manufactured in factories operated by its long-time partner TSMC.