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| Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang didn’t attend Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20. |
Nvidia stock climbed on Wednesday after President Trump sent another signal to markets that artificial intelligence would be a priority under his administration.
In midday trading, shares were up 3.8% to $146.10. The stock gained 2.3% on Tuesday and is up 9% already this year.
The chip maker once again is the world’s most valuable company with a market value of $3.45 trillion, overtaking Apple. The iPhone maker has a market value of$3.34 trillion.
Nvidia’s gains don’t appear directly linked to any Trump policies but rather to an overall positive sentiment toward AI companies.
On Tuesday, the White House announced a multibillion-dollar AI infrastructure plan with Oracl, OpenAI, and SoftBank.
The joint venture, called Project Stargate, will build infrastructure to power the next generation of AI, starting with a data center in Texas. Investments could reach $500 billion over four years. Nvidia was mentioned as a valued partner.
Project Stargate should assure investors worried about peak demand for computing power, wrote UBS analysts, led by Timothy Arcuri, on Wednesday
While details are few, the initiative sounds like it will rely on Nvidia’s compute and hardware solutions, which could boost growth even beyond 2026, Arcuri noted, adding that rival AMD
AMD +1.10% was notably absent for all communications.
On Monday, Trump revoked an order requiring AI developers to share any results of safety tests with the government before they are disclosed to the public.
While the president’s action is encouraging, investors shouldn’t expect Nvidia to deliver a third straight year of triple-digit stock gains. That is possible, but most analysts think growth will be more modest.
The average target price among the 66 analysts covering the stock is $176, according to FactSet. That figure implies upside of 25% from Tuesday’s closing price—respectable but far from the 171% and 239% gains in 2024 and 2023.