Chipmaker Nvidia had a record-setting year in 2025, becoming the world’s most valuable company as the frenzy around artificial intelligence propelled its rise to the top.
Now the Santa Clara giant is positioning itself for another year on top.
“The race is on for AI,” Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive and co-founder, said at the CES trade show in Las Vegas this week. “Everybody’s trying to get to the next level. Everybody’s trying to get to the next frontier.”
The 62-year-old tech mogul, wearing a black crocodile leather jacket, outlined his ambitious vision for the future, one filled with self-driving cars, robots and other intelligent machines that go beyond the digital screen and interact with people in the physical world.
As a keystone in the AI boom, Nvidia has also been caught up in concerns that trillions of dollars are being poured into AI companies that are overhyped and overvalued, forming a bubble that will burst.
Nvidia has helped fuel the fire, investing in companies such as ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Intel and CoreWeave. Nvidia has also backed Elon Musk’s xAI.
It has been an unprecedented ascent for a high-end chipmaker that wasn’t well known outside of some tech circles just five years ago.
The AI bubble is unlikely to burst any time soon, analysts say, and even if it does, Nvidia won’t be the hardest hit, as it will continue to dominate the market for high-end AI chips and develop new ways to bring AI into more products.
“Nvidia is going to do just fine,” said Gil Luria, head of technology research at D.A. Davidson. “And it is really an indication that we are using AI tools a lot.”
How has Nvidia benefited from the AI boom?
Nvidia was co-founded by Huang in 1993 after he studied engineering in Stanford. It rose to prominence by focusing on specialized computer chips used not only for gaming but also for cryptocurrency mining, AI model training and robotics.
It now employs more than 36,000 people across 38 countries, including at its sprawling facility in Silicon Valley. Nvidia primarily designs its chips in California and largely manufactures and assembles them in Asia. Last year, the company said it was working with its manufacturing partners to build Nvidia Blackwell chips in Arizona and AI supercomputers in Texas.
In November, Nvidia reported a record $57 billion in revenue for the third quarter, up 62% from a year ago. The company also said last year it secured $500 billion in orders for its AI chips through 2026.
Late last year, it became the first company to climb above a market value of $5 trillion, catapulting Huang’s net worth to more than $160 billion.
Nvidia has also struck some major partnerships, including with OpenAI, announcing in September that it planned to invest up to $100 billion in the San Francisco startup. OpenAI intends to build and deploy at least 10 gigawatts of AI data centers with Nvidia’s systems.
Data centers house computing equipment used to process the massive troves of information needed to train and maintain AI systems.
What is Nvidia doing to stay in the spotlight?
Nvidia is trying to ensure its chips are embedded with every new wave of AI-powered innovation. Its chips are hard to acquire, so the world’s biggest brands are lining up to work closely with the company.
Huang detailed Nvidia’s work with Mercedes-Benz, which uses the tech company’s autonomous vehicle software.
“We imagine that someday a billion cars on a road will all be autonomous,” he said, adding that people may be hailing robotaxis or even own a self-driving car.
The first autonomous car powered by Nvidia’s technology will hit the road in the United States in the first quarter before being released in Europe and Asia, he said.
He showcased Nvidia’s portfolio of AI tools to help self-driving cars reason as they navigate traffic.
In a video shot in San Francisco, a self-driving Mercedes-Benz powered by Nvidia yielded to pedestrians and vehicles on the road.
At one point, cute robots joined on stage as Huang discussed how Nvidia’s technology also helps advance the development of robots of all sizes and shapes that deliver food, lift heavy objects or perform surgery.
A new powerful AI chip, named after the American astronomer Vera Rubin, is in “full production,” he said.
Huang also talked about how Nvidia’s products are being used to build personal assistants. He discussed Nvidia’s expanded partnership with technology company Siemens to bring AI into industrial workflows, including design and production.
Nvidia ramped up its partnerships with the entertainment industry as well. The company teamed up with Universal Music Group to “pioneer responsible AI for music discovery, creation and engagement.”
What does this mean for Nvidia’s future?
Nvidia’s latest moves will help the company grow as it tries to spur more demand.
“The start of trillions of AI spending all began with the Godfather of AI Jensen and Nvidia as they are the only game in town with their chips, the new gold and oil,” wrote Wedbush Securities analysts in a note.
Robotics and autonomous technology represent “an incremental market opportunity” for Nvidia, and the company could eventually reach a $6 trillion market cap, the note said.
As tech companies try to unleash more self-driving cars on the road, they could also face hurdles in convincing people and regulators to become more comfortable with autonomous vehicles, Luria said.
“It appears almost inevitable,” he said. “The timeline is the bigger question. Is it imminent? Is it within the next couple of years, or is it still 10 to 20 years away?”
What hurdles could Nvidia face?
Despite being a major player in the AI race, uncertainty lingers about Nvidia’s market in China, which could be worth $50 billion annually. Tariffs and trade restrictions also impact the chipmaking giant.
The company lobbied aggressively for the U.S. government to ease export restrictions on AI chips so it could sell its H200 chips to Chinese companies.
President Trump and tech executives have expressed concerns that China could lead in the AI race and pose a threat to U.S. national security. But Huang has developed a close relationship with Trump and the H200 chip isn’t Nvidia’s most advanced product.
In an unusual deal, Trump said Nvidia would be allowed to sell its H200 chips if the U.S. gets a 25% percent cut of the sales.
Huang said at CES that customer demand for these chips in China is “very high,” but there have been questions about whether sales will go through.
The Information, citing anonymous sources, reported that the Chinese government asked some Chinese tech companies to halt H200 chip orders and could mandate domestic AI chip purchases.
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