NVIDIA pulls $53 billion ahead of Samsung as AI fuels chip boom: Report

Global semiconductor revenue surged to a record $793 billion in 2025, up 21% year-on-year, as demand for AI-driven chips continued to reshape the industry, according to preliminary estimates from Gartner.

“AI semiconductors — including processors, high-bandwidth memory (HBM), and networking components — continued to drive unprecedented growth in the semiconductor market, accounting for nearly one-third of total sales in 2025,” said Rajeev Rajput, senior principal analyst at Gartner. He added that the momentum is far from peaking, with AI infrastructure spending forecast to cross $1.3 trillion in 2026.

Jensen Huang's NVIDIA emerged as the winner of the AI boom, widening its revenue lead over Samsung Electronics by $53 billion in 2025. The company became the first semiconductor vendor to cross the $100 billion mark in annual sales and contributed more than 35% of total industry growth during the year, Gartner said.

Top 10 semiconductor vendors by revenue, worldwide, 2025 (Millions of US dollars)

2025 Rank	2024 Rank	Vendor	2025 Revenue	Market Share (%)	2024 Revenue	YoY Growth (%)
1	1	NVIDIA	125,703	15.8	76,692	63.9
2	2	Samsung Electronics	72,544	9.1	65,697	10.4
3	4	SK Hynix	60,640	7.6	44,186	37.2
4	3	Intel	47,883	6.0	49,804	-3.9
5	7	Micron Technology	41,487	5.2	27,619	50.2
6	5	Qualcomm	37,046	4.7	32,976	12.3
7	6	Broadcom	34,279	4.3	27,801	23.3
8	8	AMD	32,484	4.1	24,127	34.6
9	9	Apple	24,596	3.1	20,510	19.9
10	10	MediaTek	18,472	2.3	15,934	15.9
		Others (outside top 10)	298,315	37.6	270,536	10.3
		Total Market	793,449	100.0	655,882	21.0

Source: Gartner

Samsung Electronics retained its position as the world’s second-largest chipmaker, posting $73 billion in semiconductor revenue. While its memory business grew 13% year-on-year, non-memory revenue fell 8%, highlighting the uneven impact of the AI cycle. SK Hynix climbed to the No. 3 spot with $61 billion in revenue, a 37% jump from 2024, driven largely by strong demand for HBM used in AI servers.

Intel, once the dominant force in semiconductors, continued to lose market share. Gartner estimates the company ended 2025 with a 6% share of the global market—down sharply from around 12% in 2021.

The rapid buildout of AI infrastructure is now reshaping the chip mix itself. In 2025, HBM accounted for 23% of the global DRAM market, generating more than $30 billion in sales, while AI processors alone crossed $200 billion in revenue. Gartner expects AI semiconductors to account for over half of total semiconductor sales by 2029.

The strength of demand is also visible in monthly sales data. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said global semiconductor sales reached a record $75.3 billion in November 2025, up nearly 30% from a year earlier and 3.5% higher than October.

“The global semiconductor industry posted its highest-ever monthly sales total in November, with demand increasing across all major product categories on a month-on-month basis,” said John Neuffer, president and CEO of SIA. He added that the global chip market is on track to grow sharply in 2026, nearing $1 trillion in annual sales.

Regionally, year-on-year sales rose across most major markets, led by Asia Pacific/All Other at 66.1%, followed by the Americas (23.0%), China (22.9%) and Europe (11.1%). Japan was the only major market to see a decline, with sales down 8.9% year-on-year.