Nvidia dethroned Apple on Friday as the world’s most valuable company, following a record rally in the stock fueled by insatiable demand for its new supercomputing AI chips.

Nvidia’s stock market value briefly reached $3.53 trillion, while Apple’s was $3.52 trillion, according to LSEG data.

In June, Nvidia briefly became the most valuable company in the world, before being overtaken by Microsoft and Apple. The market capitalizations of the technological trio have been neck and neck for several months. Microsoft’s market value was $3.20 trillion.

Nvidia’s stock is up about 18% so far in October, with a string of gains after OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced a $6.6 billion funding round. Nvidia supplies chips used to train so-called core models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4.

“More companies are now adopting artificial intelligence in their daily tasks and demand remains strong for Nvidia chips,” said Russ Mould, chief investment officer at AJ Bell.

“We are certainly in an ideal situation and as long as we avoid a major economic downturn in the United States, we feel that companies will continue to invest heavily in AI capabilities, creating a tailwind for Nvidia.”

Nvidia shares hit a record high on Tuesday, building on a rebound last week when TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, reported quarterly profit up 54%, beating forecasts, thanks to high demand for chips used in AI.

The next big test will come when Nvidia reports its third-quarter results in November. Nvidia in August forecast third-quarter revenue of $32.5 billion, plus or minus 2%, compared with analysts’ current average expectation of $32.90 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

Morgan Stanley analyst Joseph Moore said in an Oct. 10 note that he remains “very optimistic” about the company long-term, but that the recent rally “raises the earnings bar somewhat.”

After a meeting with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Moore noted that ramping up production of its next-generation Blackwell chips appeared “pretty strong” and was booked for 12 months. The stock came under pressure in August after Nvidia confirmed reports that production of Blackwell chips had been delayed until the fourth quarter.

Shares of Nvidia, Apple and Microsoft have outsized influence on the highly valued technology sector as well as the U.S. stock market as a whole, with the trio accounting for about a fifth of the S&P 500 index’s weighting.

The frenzy around AI’s outlook, expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve would slash interest rates and, more recently, an optimistic start to earnings season, have pushed the benchmark S&P 500 to a record level last week.

Nvidia’s massive gains have helped boost the stock’s appeal to options traders and the company’s options are among the most traded daily in recent months, according to data from options analytics provider Trade Alert.

The stock has surged nearly 190% since the start of the year, as the rise of generative AI prompted the company to issue a series of booming forecasts.

“The question is whether revenue streams will last long and be driven by investor emotion rather than any ability to prove or disprove the thesis that AI is overkill,” said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments. a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey.

“I think Nvidia knows that in the short term their numbers are probably going to be pretty remarkable.”