Nvidia’s decision to bypass Intel’s new 18A process for its GPU manufacturing represents a significant blow to Intel’s foundry turnaround efforts. Despite Intel’s 100% stock rally over the past six months and a bullish outlook for its foundry unit, Nvidia opted to stick with TSMC for its advanced nodes, leaving Intel without a marquee external customer for 18A. Industry sources indicate that Nvidia evaluated performance, yield and packaging considerations before concluding that Intel’s 18A technology did not yet meet its stringent requirements for high–performance compute workloads.

Speaking to Reuters, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang revealed that Beijing has yet to greenlight imports of the firm’s H200 AI accelerator, with no orders placed by Chinese customers to date. Huang said the licensing process is ‘‘being finalized,’’ and he is ‘‘hoping for a favorable decision’’ from Chinese regulators. Market analysts estimate that Chinese AI infrastructure spending could account for up to 15% of Nvidia’s data center revenue if the H200 gains approval, making the outcome critical for the company’s growth in the world’s second–largest computing market.

Major brokerages reiterated bullish stances on Nvidia this week. Morgan Stanley retained an Overweight rating and set a 12-month target of $250, citing ‘‘strong market checks’’ and a projected 63% revenue increase driven by hyperscale AI deployments. Bernstein maintained its Buy rating with a $275 target, noting Nvidia’s ‘‘unmatched scale and execution’’ in data center GPUs and high-performance computing. According to TipRanks, Nvidia has accumulated 41 Buy recommendations over the past 90 days, with the consensus analyst target of $264 implying roughly 40% upside from current levels.

Trading at approximately 41 times forward earnings, Nvidia’s premium valuation reflects lofty growth expectations but exposes the stock to geopolitical and trade-policy risks. Easing tensions between the U.S. and China have supported sentiment, yet any renewed export restrictions on AI chips could pressure multiples. Moreover, competition from rivals such as AMD and emerging foundry capacity at Samsung and Intel create execution risks. Nonetheless, most analysts view any pullbacks as attractive entry points given Nvidia’s leadership in AI compute and visibility into multi-year growth drivers.