Microsoft joined Apple on Wednesday as a three trillion dollar company, as its big bet on artificial intelligence continued to impress Wall Street.

Now second to Apple as the world's biggest company by market capitalization, Microsoft's shares were up 1.31 percent at $404.

Apple remains narrowly in first place at $3.02 trillion after reaching the $3 trillion market capitalization mark for the first time in January 2022.

But it has fallen below the milestone, even briefly losing the pole position as biggest company on the markets when Microsoft briefly overtook the iPhone maker earlier this month.

Microsoft more than any other tech giant is riding the wave of excitement over AI. 

The Redmond, Washington-based group has a major partnership with OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, that is reportedly worth $13 billion.

Since the arrival of ChatGPT, Microsoft has launched several products enabling companies and individuals to use the capabilities of generative AI, notably via its Bing search engine and Copilot virtual assistant. 

Since the launch of ChatGPT in early November 2022, Microsoft shares have gained some 67 percent, with Apple's up by about 40 percent.

Microsoft publishes its results on 30 January.