Comparison of tech giants: America dominates
Summary
- As of the publication date, 16 companies have market caps exceeding one trillion dollars, with NVIDIA and Apple surpassing the $5 trillion mark temporarily.
- The majority of these trillion-dollar companies are based in the US, with only three exceptions: TSMC in Taiwan, Samsung in South Korea, and Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia.
- NVIDIA, the world's most valuable listed company, has seen rapid growth due to AI data centers' demand for its graphics processors, shifting from a gaming focus to data centers.
- NVIDIA's market cap is nearly 80 times that of Nordea, the largest company on Nasdaq Helsinki, and 18 times the combined value of the top ten companies on the Finnish stock exchange.
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Automatic translation: Originally published in Finnish 28/09/2026, 11:08 GMT. Give feedback here.
In 2018, Apple became the first company whose market cap exceeded the trillion-dollar mark. People wondered how a company could be so valuable, and cries of a bubble were raised. The figure felt almost incomprehensible: a thousand billion dollars.
Fast forward 8 years, and we have 16 listed companies whose market cap has exceeded the trillion-dollar mark. The most valuable of them, NVIDIA, is worth almost 80 times the largest bank in the Nordic countries, which is Nordea.
At the forefront are NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet and Microsoft, of which NVIDIA has crossed the $5 trillion threshold, as has Apple temporarily.
The group is perhaps less diverse than many would guess. It includes the oil giant Saudi Aramco, pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, and Warren Buffett’s investment company Berkshire Hathaway. The seventh most valuable is SpaceX at nearly $2 trillion.
However, the clearest common denominator is semiconductors, with AI as a major theme. Six companies (NVIDIA, TSMC, Broadcom, Samsung, Micron and AMD) rely on semiconductors. On the list of 16 companies, there is only one oil company, only one pharmaceutical company and only one investment company. The rest are technology companies.
The United States dominates
Almost all trillion-dollar companies are from the US: 13 of the 16 companies are US companies. TSMC is listed in Taiwan, Samsung in South Korea, and Saudi Aramco in Saudi Arabia. There are no European companies among them, nor are there any Chinese, Japanese, or Indian companies. As a side note regarding China, the largest company is not Alibaba or Tencent, but, to the great surprise of many, the memory chip maker CXMT, which went public in the summer.
NVIDIA is the barometer of the AI boom
The world's most valuable listed company is NVIDIA with a market cap of $5.43 trillion.
The rise has been exceptionally fast. NVIDIA crossed the trillion-dollar mark only in 2023, and in October 2025 it became the first five-trillion-dollar company. Behind this momentum is the AI data centers' ravenous demand for NVIDIA's graphics processors. Back in fiscal year 2016, NVIDIA was a gaming company, with over half of its revenue coming from graphics cards intended for PC gaming. In fiscal year 2026, approximately 90% of the company's revenue came from data centers, and gaming was merely a rounding error.
The top ten companies of Nasdaq Helsinki could fit into NVIDIA 18 times
The most valuable company on Nasdaq Helsinki is Nordea with a market cap of around EUR 60 billion, followed by Nokia at around EUR 51 billion. NVIDIA is worth almost 80 times Nordea.
The comparison doesn't even out much even if you add the entire top ten alongside Nordea. Nordea, Nokia, KONE, Neste, Sampo, Fortum, Wärtsilä, Metso, UPM and Orion have a combined value of around EUR 262 billion. Thus, NVIDIA is 18 times as valuable as the ten largest companies on Nasdaq Helsinki combined. Even the entire Finnish stock exchange list is not enough. Trillions, billions and millions are easily confused. To quote Buffett's legendary statements: "Never bet against corporate America".
