NEW YORK — Nvidia, the company that makes the small rectangles that make everything else work, is about to become the first company in the history of companies to be worth $6 trillion, a number that the human brain cannot hold and that the stock market has therefore decided to simply keep adding to.

The chipmaker’s shares hit a record this week, pushing its value to roughly $5.7 trillion and leaving it less than one good quarter short of the milestone, according to market data that analysts describe as “the scoreboard.” The company first crossed $5 trillion almost exactly two years ago, which in market terms means it recently learned how to count higher.

The rally comes after a two-month stretch in which investors, in a fit of what portfolio managers call “discipline,” sold off more than $1 trillion of the stock, then changed their minds. The reversal was helped along by a $150 billion share buyback, which is the corporate equivalent of a person buying their own birthday presents and then being impressed by the taste of the guests.

“Some say a $6 trillion valuation is rational because artificial intelligence will transform the global economy,” said Martin Okafor, a portfolio manager who owns the stock. “Others say it is a bubble. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in a third position: it is both, and the bubble is the part you can sell.”

The company’s own contribution to the milestone was modest. It announced new tools, reported strong numbers, and otherwise did what it has done for decades, which is make the math that other companies now need in order to have a business model.

"Nvidia doesn't have competitors so much as it has customers who used to think they were competitors."

The question now occupying Wall Street is not whether Nvidia reaches $6 trillion — options traders have been betting on it by the end of October — but what happens afterward, when the number stops being a milestone and becomes, simply, the starting price.

THE $6 TRILLION, IN PERSPECTIVE

  • The number: $6,000,000,000,000. If it were a country, it would outproduce every country except two.
  • The gain this year: About 28 percent, or roughly $1.2 trillion, which is itself larger than most companies.
  • The buyback: $150 billion, the company returning money to shareholders and then asking them to send it back.
  • The next milestone: $10 trillion, a figure analysts are already discussing, because analysts are already always discussing the next figure.

At press time, a reporter asked a trader on the floor what he thought of the $6 trillion mark. The trader said, “Six trillion is a September number,” and then asked the reporter not to print his name.