Apple crossed the $5tn market capitalisation threshold for the first time on Tuesday, becoming only the second company in history to reach that milestone after AI chipmaker Nvidia.

Shares in Apple rose as much as 1.3 per cent on the day to push it past the mark, though gains moderated through the session and the stock closed up around 0.4 per cent, leaving it fractionally below $5tn by the end of trading.

The landmark arrived a day after Apple overtook Nvidia to reclaim its position as the world’s most valuable publicly listed company – a title it had last held in May of the previous year. Apple’s share price has climbed roughly a quarter so far this year, a striking contrast with Nvidia, which has retreated from its own May peak amid turbulence in the semiconductor sector and now sits up only around 7 per cent for the year.

Much of Apple’s renewed appeal among investors rests on what it has not done. While Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta – the so-called hyperscalers – have poured vast sums into AI infrastructure since ChatGPT’s arrival in late 2022 ignited a sector-wide spending race, Apple has largely held back. That restraint looks increasingly attractive to investors unsettled by Alphabet’s announcement last week of plans to push capital spending to as much as $205bn this year, alongside a free cash flow figure of negative $5.9bn.

Apple is not standing still on AI, however. Early testing of a revamped Siri virtual assistant has drawn broadly encouraging reviews, with a wider rollout expected before the year is out – gradually easing the perception that the company has lagged rivals in embracing the technology.

The company is due to report its latest quarterly results later this week, alongside several other major technology groups. Those figures will give investors a clearer read on whether Apple’s measured approach to AI spending is producing financial performance to justify its towering new market standing.