Nvidia shares stuck below $200 as rivals surge

Nvidia shares traded at $197.96 in early trading after a 1.5% rise, leaving the stock up about 5% year-to-date while the PHLX Semiconductor Index has climbed roughly 94% over the same period. Investors have shifted capital into other chipmakers as they wait for more details on Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform and next-generation hardware.

The stock’s first-half performance would be the weakest since 2022, marking a departure from several years of large gains. Market participants have taken profits in Nvidia and redirected funds to other parts of the AI supply chain, including memory-chip producers and newer AI infrastructure companies.

Competition for AI hardware has broadened beyond rival graphics-chip designers to include custom chip developers and central processing unit makers. Intel’s shares have risen about 250% year-to-date and Advanced Micro Devices about 152%, while the iShares Semiconductor ETF is up roughly 102%.

Investors and industry participants are watching whether Nvidia’s next-generation products will produce a performance advantage large enough for buyers to concentrate purchases with a single vendor. Companies increasing AI spending appear to be allocating infrastructure budgets across multiple suppliers rather than relying on one source.

Export restrictions affecting sales to China have added to investor uncertainty. Market observers also note questions about how long Nvidia can sustain the rapid growth rates it posted in recent years.

Nvidia is expanding beyond datacenter GPUs into robotics and physical AI. A recruitment post on the company’s official WeChat account listed more than a dozen openings across Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen for roles in embodied intelligence, simulation, implementation and solutions. The post described the robotics team as aiming to build a “leading robotics platform and ecosystem to help developers and companies create autonomous machines.”

Job descriptions in the recruitment notice reference work on a Project GR00T humanoid robot foundation model and a Cosmos physical simulation world model, along with integration with Nvidia’s GPU-accelerated computing platforms.

Investors are awaiting further details on the Vera Rubin platform and Nvidia’s roadmap for next-generation hardware to assess product performance and customer commitments.