ANALYSIS: AI Propels NVIDIA Into Top 10 on Silicon Valley List

The 2024 version of the Fenwick–Bloomberg Law SV 150—a list of Silicon Valley’s 150 largest public tech and life science companies, ranked by 2023 revenue—welcomes new companies and shines a light on companies that were elevated and relegated to different slots from the prior year’s list.

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One company—NVIDIA Corp.—is ascending in somewhat of a unicornish way, becoming the newest member of the SV 150’s top 10. Below are three reasons why NVIDIA’s emergence may lead to further dominance for the company in the future.

Meteoric Revenue Growth

First, NVIDIA’s revenue has increased at a pace that is rarely seen these days—even in the Silicon Valley’s tech sector.

NVIDIA leapt 10 spots up this year’s SV 150 list, from 14th in 2023 to fourth in 2024. This jump is the most significant single-year upward move of any top 25 company on the SV 150 since 2019, the list’s debut year.

Other companies—such as ACM Research Inc.—moved up more spots than NVIDIA this year (23 spots, from No. 134 in 2023 to No. 111 in 2024). But what makes NVIDIA’s move so rare is this: Historically, as a company’s rank approaches #1 on the SV 150 list, more revenue separates it from the company ranked immediately above it. This fact alone makes climbing the list difficult, especially within the top 10. Consequently, no other company in the past five years has moved more than two spots from the prior year into a top 5 spot.

To acheive this feat, NVIDIA’s revenue grew 126% year-over-year. With NVIDIA beating Q1 estimates for 2024 by generating over $26B in revenue, the company is on pace to surpass $118B for 2024 (based on Bloomberg data), which would almost double its revenue over the course of the next year. For historical context, in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2020, NVIDIA generated about $11B in revenue. Just five years later, on Jan. 31, 2025, the company is projected to increase eleven-fold.

‘AIstronomical’ Potential

Second, NVIDIA’s growth is hitched, in large part, to its products’ central placement in the infrastructure of leading AI foundation models. And since AI itself is in a hypergrowth phase with no signs of slowing down, we should expect NVIDIA to keep a similar pace.

NVIDIA makes graphic processing units (GPUs), an essential component to processing data ultra-quickly. GPUs are useful for such AI-powered products as NVIDIA’s own supercomputers, which Open AI LLC leveraged to develop Chat GPT.

Even as big tech companies try to become less dependent on NVIDIA for manufacturing chips that power their products’ AI use, many are eagerly awaiting the release of Blackwell, NVIDIA’s newest GPU. According to CEO Jensen Huang, a single Blackwell chip can process vast amounts of data and perform quadrillions of calculations per second.

NVIDIA’s products—and what they mean for technological advancements for AI—appear to be critical for companies seeking to keep their own generative AI-powered products competitive. And investors seem to agree; the company’s stock price has more than doubled in the last three months alone, and has nearly quadrupled in the last year.

With NVIDIA beating Q1 estimates for 2024 by generating over $26B in revenue, the company is on pace to surpass $118B for 2024 (based on Bloomberg data), which would almost double its revenue over the course of the next year. For historical context, in the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2020, NVIDIA generated about $11B in revenue. Just five years later, on Jan. 31, 2025, the company is projected to increase eleven-fold.

Given all this, NVIDIA is set to make significant strides over the next year to close in on Meta Platform Inc.‘s current No. 3 spot on the SV 150, and its strong connection to the AI ecosystem provides a critical path to do just that and more.

Sidestepping ‘AI Washing’ Claims

Despite its close connection to AI, NVIDIA seems less susceptible to “AI washing” allegations that could result in higher risk exposure via penalities and lawsuits that can eat into its profits.

NVIDIA, like many public AI-adjacent companies, will be watched closely by regulators and investors for AI-related statements it makes in public disclosures, as well as those that company officers like Huang make publicly. AI washing generally happens when a company exaggerates or fails to sufficiently substantiate claims that it makes about how it incorporates AI into its products or services, having the effect of drawing in investment capital or generating revenue.

NVIDIA seems to be better poised to withstand any allegations of AI washing, since one of the company’s main revenue drivers—the GPU—is a B2B product that doesn’t incorporate AI but instead has established itself as a critical component to processing data which is essential to advancing AI capabilities—an assertion that is widely acknowledged.

The Rest of the Top 10

With the exception of Netflix Inc., which fell from No. 10 to No. 12, the rest of the companies ranked in last year’s top 10 all returned to the top 10 in 2024 as well.

The No. 1, 2, and 3 spots remained intact from last year (Apple Inc., Alphabet Inc., and Meta Platforms Inc. respectively). Also standing pat were TD SYNNEX Corp. at No. 5 and Uber Technologies Inc. at No. 9.

Aside from NVIDIA, the only member of the top 10 that showed upward movement from last year was Cisco Systems Inc., which rose one place to No. 6.

Three top 10 companies slipped in 2024, including HP Inc. (down two spots to No. 8) and Broadcom Inc. (down two spots to No. 10).

One final observation that may prove to be symbolic of NVIDIA’s newfound dominance is that the 4th spot that it now holds was held by Intel Corp.—its chief rival—a year ago. On the 2024 SV 150 list, Intel is now at No. 7.

In other analysis articles covering the results of the 2024 Fenwick–Bloomberg Law SV 150 List:

• Preston Brewer looks at the changing role of IPOs in the makeup of this year’s list;
• Abena Opong-Fosu assesses the state of M&A activity among the top 10; and
• Emily Rouleau takes a closer look at the newcomers to the 2024 list.

Bloomberg Law subscribers can find related content on our In Focus: Artificial Intelligence resource.

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