Nvidia stock pulled ahead of Intel’s today for the first time, emerging with a $
248 billion market cap against Intel’s $246 billion. That officially makes it the US’ most valuable chip maker and the third largest chip maker in the world, which is impressive for a company that can’t physically produce a single chip.
Unlike Intel, Nvidia is a fabless chip maker, meaning it designs chips but contracts out their actual production to third-party foundries like TSMC (which also happens to be the second largest chip maker in the world, just behind Samsung). Intel, meanwhile, owns its own fabs and handles creating chips entirely in house, from design to production. But clearly, that comes with its disadvantages.