Nvidia shares climbed 4.7% to $209.07 on Friday, approaching record highs as the market refocuses on the company's valuation prospects ahead of its fiscal first-quarter earnings report on May 20. The rally pushed Nvidia's market capitalization past $5 trillion, leaving the stock just shy of its previous record close and sparking debate over whether it can break above the $200 level or remain range-bound.
The broader semiconductor sector also gained momentum, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index hitting an all-time high and extending its winning streak to 18 consecutive sessions. Chip stocks rallied after Intel posted a stronger-than-expected outlook, signaling that investors remain committed to the artificial intelligence wave. According to Reuters, the index is heading for its 18th straight daily gain, underscoring broad-based enthusiasm for AI-linked investments.
Nvidia's headline numbers remain robust. For the fiscal fourth quarter, the company reported revenue of $68.1 billion, up 73% year over year. Data center revenue surged 75% to $62.3 billion. Looking ahead, Nvidia expects first-quarter revenue to land around $78 billion, plus or minus 2%, though that outlook excludes any data center compute sales from China. The company's GPUs, which power much of today's AI infrastructure, continue to anchor its results.
The spotlight is now on Nvidia's upcoming Vera Rubin AI platform. The company says products built on Rubin should hit the market through partners in the second half of 2026, targeting as much as a 10x reduction in AI inference costs compared with the current Blackwell architecture. "Rubin arrives at exactly the right moment," CEO Jensen Huang said in January. Investors are looking beyond the coming quarter's numbers for clues about 2027 demand, particularly from major cloud customers. BNP Paribas analyst David O'Connor noted that "2027 datapoints to move the needle could come from Agentic AI," pointing to ramp-up details and demand signals around Vera Rubin as key factors.
Competition in the AI chip space is intensifying. Google rolled out its eighth-generation tensor processing units this week, dividing them into TPU 8t for model training and TPU 8i for inference, with availability expected later this year. However, Google also highlighted A5X bare-metal instances running Nvidia Vera Rubin NVL72, underscoring its dual role as both a custom silicon developer and a significant Nvidia partner. Broadcom continues to invest heavily, with CEO Hock Tan reporting a 106% jump in fiscal first-quarter AI revenue to $8.4 billion, driven by strong demand for custom AI accelerators and networking products. Broadcom projects $10.7 billion in AI semiconductor revenue for the second quarter.
Intel added a new twist on Friday. A spike in demand for CPUs handling AI inference sent Intel shares soaring, and AMD and Arm also saw gains as investors recalibrated expectations about how much AI work will end up outside Nvidia's GPUs. "The AI build-out race is still on," said Angelo Kourkafas, senior global investment strategist at Edward Jones, as quoted by Reuters.
Despite the positive momentum, Nvidia's path to $300 per share is not without obstacles. The company's own guidance already reflects the impact of China export restrictions. Google and Broadcom, both building custom chips, could undercut Nvidia on pricing for certain workloads. If the Vera Rubin rollout faces delays, investors may be less inclined to raise their 2027 targets. Shares currently trade near $209, meaning a move to $300 would require a roughly 43% gain.
Nvidia gets another chance to prove its story isn't topping out with the upcoming May 20 earnings call. Investors will be looking beyond mere revenue beats—they want bookings, margin details, and clear signs that Vera Rubin will keep Nvidia at the center of the next wave of AI spending.
