Partnerships and government contracts fuel optimism
At Tuesday’s GTC conference, Nvidia’s CEO went out of his way to praise repeatedly Donald Trump and his policies to accelerate domestic technology investment, while warning that excluding China from the Nvidia ecosystem could limit US access to half of the world’s AI developers. The overall event highlighted Nvidia’s role as an American company, and Huang even nodded to Trump’s signature farewell slogan as he thanked the audience for “making America great again.”
Trump’s cooperation is paramount for Nvidia because US export controls have effectively blocked Nvidia’s AI chips from China, costing the company billions of dollars in revenue. Bob O’Donnell of TECHnalysis Research told Reuters that “Nvidia clearly brought their story to DC to educate and curry favor with the US government. They managed to touch on most of the hottest and most influential topics in technology.”
Beyond the political message, Huang announced a series of partnerships and deals that appeared to help ease investor concerns about Nvidia’s future. The company announced collaborations with Uber Technologies, Palantir Technologies and CrowdStrike Holdings, among others. Nvidia also revealed a $1 billion investment in Nokia to support the telecommunications company’s shift toward artificial intelligence and 6G networks.
The deal with Uber will power a fleet of 100,000 autonomous vehicles powered by Nvidia, with automaker Stellantis being one of the first to deliver the robotaxis. Palantir will combine Nvidia technology with its Ontology platform to use artificial intelligence techniques to obtain logistics information, with Lowe’s as an early adopter. Eli Lilly plans to build what Nvidia described as the most powerful supercomputer owned and operated by a pharmaceutical company, based on more than 1,000 Blackwell AI accelerator chips.
The $5 trillion valuation exceeds the entire value of the cryptocurrency market and is roughly half the size of the pan-European Stoxx 600 stock index, Reuters notes. At current prices, Huang’s stake in Nvidia would be worth about $179.2 billion, making him the eighth richest person in the world.
