Apple surpassed Nvidia in intraday trading on 17 July 2026, reaching a market capitalisation of roughly $4.9 trillion while Nvidia slipped to $4.8 trillion after its shares fell as much as 4 percent. The move briefly ended Nvidia’s near-year-long run as the world’s most valuable listed company, though the chipmaker clawed back losses later in the session and the two traded neck and neck by the close. The jolt reflected a broader reassessment of the artificial-intelligence investment cycle, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index down almost 19 percent from its record high.

The rotation was driven by mounting questions over whether the enormous capital expenditure on AI infrastructure can generate commensurate returns. Investors in New York and London noted that Apple, which does not build its own large language models and has been viewed as a laggard in the AI race, is now being rewarded for its lighter capital-spending profile. Toni Meadows, head of investment at BRI Wealth Management, told Reuters that Apple is “less exposed to capex intensity and better positioned to monetise AI via services, ecosystem lock-in, and hardware upgrades.” The sentiment shift was amplified by news that Chinese startup Moonshot had released a model capable of competing with offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic, raising the prospect that the infrastructure build-out may be approaching a peak.

Apple’s own AI push has gathered momentum. The company last month unveiled a long-awaited overhaul of its Siri voice assistant, and it recently secured Chinese government approval to deploy Apple Intelligence in that market. HSBC upgraded the stock to “buy” from “hold”, arguing the company is at an “operational turning point” and can leverage its installed base of 2.5 billion devices. Meanwhile, Nvidia remains central to the AI ecosystem—its graphics processors power most generative-AI workloads—and analysts in Asia and the United States cautioned that the leadership change does not signal a durable shift in relative strength. The sell-off in semiconductor names was felt globally: South Korea’s Kospi index dropped more than 6 percent on the day, dragged down by Samsung and SK Hynix, while Japan’s Nikkei fell over 4 percent.

The episode underscores how sensitive AI-exposed valuations have become to any signal of slowing demand. Apple’s own position is not without risk: it has raised device prices to offset rising component costs, a strategy that could weigh on demand. The next factual milestone for the company is the planned September handover of the chief executive role from Tim Cook to hardware chief John Ternus, a transition that will test whether the market’s confidence in Apple’s earnings durability persists through a leadership change.