By Will Healy
Publication Date: 2026-01-09 14:55:00
An emerging industry could upend Nvidia’s leadership among the Magnificent Seven companies.
The increasing demand for all things artificial intelligence (AI) helped Nvidia emerge out of nowhere to become the world’s largest company as measured by market cap. Between the $4.6 trillion market cap and the continuing growth of the AI accelerator market, few companies hold a realistic chance of overtaking it anytime soon.
Still, few does not mean zero, and competition from companies like Advanced Micro Devices could slow its growth. That could present opportunities for some top companies to claim the world’s largest market cap title. If any company overtakes Nvidia, it will most likely be one of these two enterprises.
Image source: Getty Images.
Alphabet
After the release of AI large language model GPT-4 by OpenAI, Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL +1.36%) (GOOG +1.33%) suffered from a perception it was going to be left behind when it comes to artificial intelligence-related search. Google Search’s market share had fallen below 90%, and AI engines often bypassed the advertising ecosystem that still drives the majority of Alphabet’s revenue.
However, Alphabet was an early pioneer in AI and has always invested in technical improvements. Also, the company’s tremendous resources allowed it to spend between $91 billion and $93 billion in capital expenditures (capex) in 2025 alone.
Today, the latest version of Google Gemini has made competitive strides against ChatGPT and other AI…
