Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ: NVDA) is on the cusp of its annual artificial intelligence conference, with high expectations for the semiconductor giant to unveil news that could further fuel its stock's impressive rally.
The Nvidia GTC, a premier event for GPU technology that has evolved into a critical global AI conference for developers, is scheduled to run from March 18-21 in San Jose, California.
Nvidia's CEO, Jensen Huang, is slated to kick off the event with a keynote speech that could potentially stabilize the stock's recent volatility and continue its significant upward trajectory of over 80% this year, Bloomberg reports.
Nvidia's market capitalization recently surpassed $2 trillion, positioning it just $400 billion behind Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) as the second-most valuable company on Wall Street, following Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT).
Analysts are projecting an 81% surge in Nvidia's revenue to $110 billion this year, as demand for its premier chips for chatbots, image generators, and other AI systems skyrockets-doubling the sales anticipated for Intel, the former PC boom leader, Reuters reports.
Central to Nvidia's continued dominance in the evolving computing era will be the launch of its next-generation high-end AI processor, expected to be named the B100, which will be crucial to the AI systems Nvidia sells and will likely begin shipping later this year.
Despite the overwhelming demand for Nvidia's current AI chips leading to long wait times for developers, the B100 will likely carry a higher price tag than its predecessor, which is already priced over $20,000.
Ted Mortonson from Robert W. Baird & Co. anticipates that the conference will serve as a significant catalyst, offering more profound insights into Nvidia's industry penetration, drawing parallels to Apple Inc.'s annual product launches.
With the spotlight on Huang to showcase innovations, especially those that could emulate the success of the H100 chips for data centers, Nvidia aims to solidify its dominance in the lucrative AI market.
Bank of America analysts, led by Vivek Arya, have aptly named the conference "AI Woodstock" and have raised their Nvidia price target to $1,100 from $925 in anticipation.
Even after a significant 83% stock price increase in 2024, Nvidia trades at 34 times its expected earnings, a decrease from a PE of 58 a year ago. This suggests that analysts have significantly raised their future earnings estimates for Nvidia.
Investors can gain exposure to Nvidia via VanEck Semiconductor ETF (NASDAQ: SMH) and Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (NASDAQ: BOTZ).
Price Action: NVDA shares traded lower by 3.58% at $876.36 on last check Thursday.