Nvidia (NVDA) stock continued to tick higher Thursday, rising 0.5% in early trading after notching a record high above $154 the prior day.
The gains come amid bullish predictions for the AI chip market on Wall Street.
Loop Capital analyst Ananda Baruah on Wednesday raised his price target on Nvidia shares to $250, the highest of Wall Street analysts tracked by Yahoo Finance, implying that the AI chipmaker’s market capitalization could soar to $6 trillion. Baruah expects the market for AI chips to grow to $2 trillion in 2028.
Baruah said that “we are entering the next ‘Golden Wave’ of Gen AI adoption and NVDA is at the front-end of another material leg of stronger than anticipated demand.” He cited emerging demand for AI chips from governments, commitments from Big Tech “hyperscalers,” and the availability of Nvidia’s latest Blackwell AI chips.
“While it may seem fantastic that NVDA fundamentals can continue to amplify from current levels, we remind folks that NVDA remains essentially a monopoly for critical tech, and that it has pricing (and margin) power,” he wrote.
Read more about Nvidia’s stock moves and today’s market action.
Bank of America analyst Vivek Arya wrote in his own note to investors Wednesday that he forecasts demand for AI chips reaching a more modest but still impressive $650 billion by 2030, up from $201 billion in 2025. Arya said Nvidia is set to be a “key beneficiary” as it’s “still far ahead” of new entrants in the sector.
In another bullish sign for Nvidia, Micron (MU), which supplies memory chips for Nvidia’s GPUs in data centers, beat Wall Street’s expectations for its third quarter earnings results Wednesday, with executives citing strength in its AI business amid robust AI data center growth during a call with analysts.
To be sure, there has been investor skepticism over whether Big Tech can continue its torrid pace of investment in AI, especially after a new cost-effective AI model from Chinese firm DeepSeek caught the world’s attention in January. News of DeepSeek’s latest AI model in January sent Nvidia shares plummeting at the end of that month.
Before its high Wednesday, Nvidia last hit a record close of $149.43 on Jan. 6. Nvidia stock had struggled in the months following its record close in January with the emergence of DeepSeek and as President Trump embarked on his trade war, which included the enactment of a ban on sales of the company’s chips to China.
Shares have seen a big upswing since the company announced trade deals in the Middle East and reported its first quarter earnings in late May, which showed revenue beating Wall Street’s expectations and the company continuing to thrive despite Trump’s export ban on its chips for China.
Laura Bratton is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Bluesky @laurabratton.bsky.social. Email her at laura.bratton@yahooinc.com.
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