Apple overtook the chipmaker Nvidia on Monday to become the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, about two years after it lost the crown.

The company’s ascent was as much a result of a sell-off of Nvidia’s stock as it was an endorsement by investors. Apple’s stock price finished the day up more than 1 percent, leading to a market valuation of $4.9 trillion. But Nvidia’s stock, driven by spending concerns, was down almost 5 percent, leading to a market cap of $4.8 trillion, according to Bloomberg.

Apple has sat on the sidelines of the artificial intelligence race for much of the past four years, leading to more frequent questions from investors about its plans. In 2024, after more than a decade at the top of the stock market, it lost the most-valuable-company crown to Microsoft.

While Apple’s reign over the stock market could be short-lived, it returned to the top as investors re-evaluate A.I. Earlier this month, stocks slid amid increasing concerns about spending on the technology and growing competition from China. As questions abound over whether the next big bet by the technology industry will pay off, investors appear to be returning to a safe gamble.

“Apple is a little bit of a flight to safety,” said Daniel Newman, the chief executive of Futurum Group, a technology analysis company. “People see the A.I. trade is volatile, and they see Apple as almost like owning an index,” he added.

In the four or so years since OpenAI released its ChatGPT chatbot and kicked off the A.I. boom, Nvidia’s market valuation has ballooned more than tenfold. Demand has surged for its chips, known as graphics processing units. They are key components for developing and running A.I., but there are growing concerns about costs associated with A.I. development.