Tech giants are swallowing the old continent." Nvidia overtakes Germany's economy
The market capitalization of US semiconductor giant Nvidia crossed all economic red lines in mid-May, after its shares soared to reach the $5.7 trillion threshold (about 4.8 trillion euros).
Nvidia dethrones Berlin
Under this significant rise, the company on the throne of electronic chips and artificial intelligence has toppled the size of the entire economy of Germany, which is the third largest economy in the world and the largest financial power in Europe, as its estimates of GDP for 2026 issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) stood at $5.45 trillion, making the company the largest of any single European economy after earlier displacing both Japan and the United Kingdom, according to IMF data.
How do the market values of tech giants and multinationals compare to the world's largest economies? Where does Europe stand in this picture?
Shocking figures expose the decline of the "old continent"
The language of the numbers based on CompaniesMarketCap data showed a deep and terrifying gap between the size of the tech giants and national sovereignty in Europe, as Nvidia's market capitalization was found to have exceeded the combined GDP of the EU's 19 smallest countries of $5.02 trillion.
While the United States retains the top of the global economy with $32.38 trillion, China is followed by China with $20.58 trillion.
Silicon Valley's giants are expanding beyond entire countries, with Alphabet (€4.12 trillion) and Apple (€3.75 trillion) larger than any European economy except Germany, while Microsoft and Amazon have surpassed Italy's GDP of €2.35 trillion, the continent's fourth-largest economy.
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Financial comparisons put the five largest U.S. technology companies — Nvidia, Alphabet, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon — in a completely dominant balance against the major European powers.
According to the approved financial statements, its combined market value reached $20.81 trillion, a figure that far exceeds the combined GDP of the five largest economies in the Old Continent (Germany, Britain, France, Italy, and Spain), which stood at $18.14 trillion.
The financial expansion coincided with significant geopolitical moves, with NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang participating in Donald Trump's high-profile visit to China, hinting at expectations that the explosion in demand for AI technologies could push the company's sales to nearly $1 trillion in just two years.
Europe is out of the high-tech race
The map of European companies confirmed the absence of any real competitor comparable to the American giants, with the Dutch chip manufacturer ASML ranked as the highest ranked European company in the 21st place globally with a value of $610.69 billion, followed by the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche with $335.1 billion, and then the British AstraZeneca with $286.84 billion.
Although market cap and GDP measure two different things, with output reflecting the value of goods and services produced annually and market capitalization reflecting investors' expectations for future earnings, these figures provide compelling evidence of U.S. technological dominance and the shifting centers of economic power in the 21st century.