Riding AI Wave Past Profitability Hurdle, Marvell to Join S&P 500 Index

(Central News Agency, Washington, comprehensive foreign news on the 5th) S&P Dow Jones Indices said today that driven by the AI boom, Marvell Technology has passed a key profitability threshold and will be added to the S&P 500 later this month.

According to Reuters, Marvell will replace PoolCorp, a swimming pool equipment wholesaler, as a component of the S&P 500 before the market opens on June 22. Marvell's shares surged nearly 6% in after-hours trading.

Marvell's inclusion in the S&P 500 comes after it posted profits calculated under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for the three-month period ending in December and for the last four quarters combined, clearing a major hurdle that had previously prevented its inclusion.

Marvell's stock price has more than tripled so far this year, benefiting from strong market expectations for artificial intelligence (AI)-related demand that has boosted the entire chip sector.

Just this week, Marvell's stock surged about 29%, partly because Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called the chipmaker 'the next trillion-dollar company.' As of today's close, Marvell's market capitalization was $276.81 billion.

Marvell, along with its larger competitor Broadcom, designs custom chips for the specific data center needs of cloud computing companies. This business is growing rapidly as tech giants seek to reduce their reliance on Nvidia's costly and supply-constrained AI processors.

In its latest quarterly earnings report, Marvell forecast that its custom chip business would generate over $10 billion in revenue by fiscal 2029.

Marvell's inclusion in the S&P 500 reflects how the AI boom is reshaping the major U.S. stock market benchmark index. The weight of chip and data center infrastructure companies in the index is increasing as investors are optimistic about sustained demand from cloud service providers and AI workloads.

This move will trigger buying from index funds and ETFs that track the S&P 500, as passive managers must hold component stocks according to their index weight.

Additionally, contract manufacturing giant Flex will also be added to the S&P 500, replacing packaged food company Campbell's.