A group of technology companies backed by Nvidia are set to join the Nasdaq 100 index later this month, and their shares jumped sharply on Friday after the news broke, according to Investopedia.
The Nasdaq 100 tracks the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Getting added to the index is a significant milestone — it forces index funds and exchange-traded funds that track the Nasdaq 100 to automatically purchase shares in the newly included companies, generating a surge of buying pressure that tends to push prices higher.
The rally in these Nvidia-backed firms reflects how closely intertwined the broader AI investment story has become with Nvidia itself. As the dominant supplier of chips used to train and run AI systems, Nvidia has taken stakes in a number of startups and technology companies working across the AI ecosystem. Their inclusion in a marquee index signals that the market is increasingly treating these companies as established players rather than speculative bets.
According to Investopedia, several of these stocks rallied on Friday alone following the index announcement — a pattern that index-inclusion events commonly produce as traders anticipate the flood of passive fund buying that follows.
This matters because it shows the AI investment wave is no longer confined to a handful of household names: companies in Nvidia's orbit are now large and liquid enough to sit alongside the most prominent firms in the U.S. technology sector.