SAN JOSE, Calif. – The sun hasn’t yet risen over the Silicon Valley city that Nvidia calls home, but the tech giant’s massive annual GPU Technology Conference is already generating buzz. Thousands of engineers, developers, and industry experts have descended on San Jose, eagerly anticipating potential game-changing announcements from the AI computing leader.
As Nvidia shares traded higher in pre-market trading Monday, analysts bounced their price targets skyward in anticipation. The hype stems largely from expectations that Nvidia will unveil its latest innovations in hardware and software to power the booming artificial intelligence field.
“This year’s GTC is by far Nvidia’s biggest yet, fueled by the AI craze kicked off by last year’s release of ChatGPT,” said Dan Howley, Yahoo Finance’s tech editor reporting live from the event. “We’re expecting major new product reveals and a deeper look into how Nvidia sees AI transforming industries in the months ahead.”
While Nvidia has played coy about specific announcements, leaks and analyst predictions provide hints at what may be unveiled during CEO Jensen Huang’s keynote address. Top of the list are rumors of a powerful new GPU architecture meant to succeed Nvidia’s current H100 and H200 chips.
Codenamed “Blackwell,” the next-gen graphics processor is expected to double down on AI capabilities like machine learning processing. Some reports indicate it could be marketed as an “accelerated computing” chip, reflecting Nvidia’s positioning of its hardware as the engine for artificial intelligence workflows.
“Nvidia has an opportunity to really lean into being the premier AI computing company,” said Pat Moorhead, founder of Moore Insights & Strategy. “Their GPUs already power many of the large language models behind apps like ChatGPT. Revealing a new chip optimized for those workloads would be a major stake in the ground.”
Beyond hardware, analysts anticipate updates on Nvidia’s Grace CPU line designed for high-performance computing and datascenters. There’s also Nvidia’s own custom AI processor called Grace Hopper, which could receive enhancements or have successors teased.
On the software side, GTC will likely showcase how Nvidia is integrating its CUDA programming framework and AI tools across industries like automotive, healthcare, cloud computing, and more. Announcements of new partnerships bringing Nvidia’s tech into those fields seem likely as well.
“AI is rapidly moved from research curiosity to an irresistible force reshaping entire sectors,” said Holger Mueller, VP at Constellation Research. “As a leading platform powering that transformation, all eyes will be on Nvidia this week to articulate their vision for this AI-driven future.”
While ChatGPT may have kicked off the current AI frenzy, Huang could aim to position Nvidia’s tech as fueling the next evolution – perhaps even an updated large language model to demonstrate their latest hardware’s capabilities. Whatever is revealed, the company will surely continue pushing its computing platform as a central catalyst for the AI revolution underway.
Amid this backdrop, it’s no surprise Wall Street is having visions of much higher valuations for the chipmaker. Wedbush raised its price target to $1,000 per share, up from $850. Truist Securities went to $1,177 from $911. And HSBC increased its target to $1,050 from $880.
“We’ll see what happens after the actual announcements,” Howley said. “But one thing’s clear – the AI buzz surrounding Nvidia is only getting louder heading into GTC.”
As the sun rises over San Jose, the anticipation builds for what could be Nvidia’s biggest product launch yet. The company’s ability to deliver on the AI hype may determine if those elevated stock prices are justified.
