Nvidia surges nearly 9% after beating Wall Street forecasts, lifting U.S. stocks

At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average had risen 0.2 percent, the broad S&P 500 index was up 0.7 percent, while the Nasdaq - where Nvidia is listed - climbed 1.6 percent.

The semiconductor giant - the world's most valuable publicly traded company - surged nearly 9 percent after Wednesday night's report, in which both earnings per share and revenue came in higher than analysts had expected.

Other AI companies also rose after Nvidia's strong results, including Broadcom and Intel, which both gained just over 4 percent.