Tech giant becomes second firm ever to pass milestone

Microsoft has become only the second publicly traded company after Nvidia to surpass $4 trn (£3.03trn) in market valuation, after registering huge earnings.

On Thursday, shares rose on Wall Street with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq climbing to new record highs. Stocks in Microsoft jumped after posting better-than-expected results, helped by its Azure cloud computing platform, which is a centrepiece of the company's artificial intelligence (AI) efforts.

Shares in Facebook and Instagram's parent company, Meta, also surged after beating sales and profit targets. Technology giants Apple and Amazon will report their results after Wall Street's close.

Microsoft first cracked the $1trn (£760bn) mark in April 2019, but its move to $3trn (£2.27trn) took longer than technology giants Nvidia and Apple. Nvidia tripled its value in just about a year and clinched the $4trn milestone before any other company on 9 July.

Apple was last valued at $3.12trn. In comparison, the biggest UK company by market value is drug manufacturer AstraZeneca, worth $235.97bn (£178.55bn).

Companies ranked by market value (USD), according to tradingview.com 1. Nvidia (US) $4.43trn2.

Microsoft (US) $4trn3. Apple (US) $3.12trn4.

Amazon (US) $2.47trn5. Alphabet (US) $2.35trn6.

Meta (US) $1.95trn7. Saudi Arabian Oil (Saudi Arabia) $1.56trn8.

Broadcom (US) $1.42trn9. Berkshire Hathaway (US) $1.03trn10.

Tesla (US) $1.02trn11. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (Taiwan) $1trn29.

Samsung Electronics (South Korea) $338.06bn36. Alibaba (China) $284.62bn52.

AstraZeneca (UK) $235.97bn While sweeping US tariffs had investors worried about tighter business spending, Microsoft's strong earnings have shown that the company's books are yet to take a hit. Microsoft's multibillion-dollar bet on OpenAI is proving to be a game changer, powering its Office Suite and Azure offerings with cutting-edge AI and fueling the stock to more than double its value since ChatGPT's late-2022 debut.

Read more from Sky News:Microsoft beats Nvidia by market valueTrump unveils AI action planUK ramps up AI adoption with Meta On Wednesday, the firm announced Azure sales surpassed $75bn (£56bn) on an annual basis, while Azure revenue jumped 39% in the April-June quarter. Overall revenue rose 18% to $76.4bn (£57.81bn) over the same period.

It is also forecasting a record $30bn (£22.7bn) in capital spending over the first quarter to meet soaring AI demand...