By Lisa Eadicicco and John Towfighi, CNN

New York (CNN) — Nvidia on Wednesday hit $4 trillion in market value, making it the first publicly traded company to hit that milestone.

Nvidia stock rose 2.5% after the market opened on Wednesday to hit an intraday record high that pushed its market value above the $4 trillion mark.

The US chipmaker has had a remarkable march to record highs and has soared around 20% this year, thanks to its leading role powering the artificial intelligence boom.

Nvidia beat Apple and Microsoft to the $4 trillion mark. Apple entered this year as the world’s most valuable company at just about $3.9 trillion before tumbling in recent months amid President Donald Trump’s tariff turmoil. Nvidia and Microsoft traded places as the world’s most valuable company in recent months, before Nvidia surged ahead to reach the $4 trillion mark first.

Nvidia’s chips power the data centers that companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google need to fuel their AI models and cloud services — and AI investments are only expected to grow. Global spending on AI infrastructure is expected to surpass $200 billion by 2028, according to market research firm The International Data Corporation.

Nvidia generated $44.1 billion in revenue for the quarter that ended in April, up 69% from the same period a year ago.

“There is one company in the world that is the foundation for the AI Revolution and that is Nvidia,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a research note on June 27.

The company rose to fame for its graphics processing units, which have become a favorite among PC gamers. Now it is charging ahead with new AI models designed to power autonomous robots and vehicles. At its annual developers conference in March, it announced an update to its sought-after Blackwell chip called Blackwell Ultra, which it says will better support AI models with more sophisticated reasoning capabilities.

Nvidia hit $1 trillion in May 2023.

“This is a historical moment for Nvidia, the tech space flexing its muscles, and speaks to the AI Revolution hitting its next stage of growth led by the one chip fueling AI … Nvidia,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in emailed commentary Wednesday. He added that he believes Microsoft, which currently has a valuation around $3.77 trillion, will also cross the $4 trillion threshold this summer.

Nvidia’s role in the AI gold rush has made CEO Jensen Huang one of the world’s richest people — as of Tuesday, Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index pegged him as the tenth wealthiest person, with a net worth of $140 billion. The executive has also found himself in Trump’s orbit, raising his profile beyond the tech industry.

Huang has met with the president and was among the several high-profile tech executives to accompany him during a Saudi Arabia trip in May. Nvidia is also a partner in Project Stargate, the $500 billion AI infrastructure initiative that Trump announced in January and touted as key to his push to grow America’s tech footprint.

But that success hasn’t come without roadblocks. Chinese startup DeepSeek shook Wall Street and Silicon Valley with its powerful yet supposedly low-cost AI model earlier this year, raising questions about whether costly chips and hardware are necessary to advance AI — and sending Nvidia’s stock plunging in January.

Nvidia has also been caught in the AI race between Washington and Beijing: The company said it missed out on $2.5 billion in additional revenue for the fiscal quarter that ended in April because of export restrictions on its H20 AI chips to China.

Shares in Nvidia had tumbled as much as 37% from January to April as the chipmaker wrestled with DeepSeek fears and US-China trade tensions. Nvidia has since rallied to new record highs, gaining almost 74% since early April.

Huang sees a long runway for growth. On Nvidia’s earnings call in May, he said AI will be necessary for “every country” and “every industry.”

“Of course, we know that AI is this incredible technology that’s going to transform every industry, from, of course, the way we do software to health care and financial services to retail to, I guess, every industry, transportation, manufacturing,” he said. “And we’re at the beginning of that.”

Wall Street analysts expect Nvidia to keep climbing. In a June research note, analysts from investment firm Loop Capital estimated that the company could reach a $6 trillion market cap by 2028.

“While it may seem fantastic that (Nvidia) fundamentals can continue to amplify from current levels, we remind folks that (Nvidia) remains essentially a monopoly for critical tech” in the AI sector, Loop Capital’s Ananda Baruah and Alek Valero wrote in the note.

This story has been updated with additional details and context.

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CNN’s Clare Duffy contributed to this report.