Nvidia Is Back In The $3 Trillion-Market-Cap Club As The U.S. Weighs Saudi Chip Deal

Dow Jones
14 May

Nvidia Corp. surpassed a $3 trillion market capitalization for the first time since February on Tuesday, as investors anticipate a boost from a U.S. chip deal with Saudi Arabia.

President Donald Trump is planning to unveil a deal that would give the Gulf nation more access to advanced chips from companies such as Nvidia $(NVDA)$ and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. $(AMD)$, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. and Saudi governments are reportedly finalizing details of the agreement as Trump begins his visit to the Middle East. These issues include U.S. concerns that China - which is banned from U.S. advanced semiconductors - could still get the chips by intercepting physical shipments or accessing them through the cloud. U.S. companies are already required to have a license to sell AI chips to countries in the Middle East, partly due to those concerns. The U.S. has reportedly proposed controlling access to Saudi data centers that use U.S. chips as a solution.

Shares of Nvidia were up 5.6% at the market close on Tuesday, pushing the chip maker to a market cap of $3.17 trillion. AMD was up 4% at the end of the trading day.

To deal with the U.S.'s national security concerns, the U.S. and Saudi governments have reportedly discussed creating data embassies, where data centers will fall under foreign regulations rather than local laws around data protection. The data embassies could make Saudi Arabia an "attractive environment for foreign governments and private sector entities to develop and adopt such technologies for peaceful purposes and uses," according to a draft of the law, cited by Bloomberg.

Neither the U.S. Commerce Department nor the Saudi Press Agency immediately responded to a request for comment from MarketWatch.

The deal comes as the Trump administration prepares rules around the deployment of advanced chips abroad, after scrapping artificial intelligence rules introduced by the former Biden administration that would have controlled chip shipments to a wider range of countries and trading partners.

"The Biden AI rule is overly complex, overly bureaucratic and would stymie American innovation," the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security said in a statement previously shared with MarketWatch. "We will be replacing it with a much simpler rule that unleashes American innovation and ensures American AI dominance."

The Trump administration is also reportedly considering pulling back on restricting sales of Nvidia's chips to the United Arab Emirates.

A deal with Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E., and the wider region could give a lift to Nvidia, which was banned from selling its specially-designed H20 chips to China by the Trump administration in April. The company said in a regulatory filing that it expected charges of up to $5.5 billion in the fiscal first quarter from the rule targeting the chips, which were made to comply with existing U.S. export controls.

Meanwhile, Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang announced a deal on Tuesday to deploy 18,000 chips with newly launched Saudi AI firm Humain for a data center that is expected to reach 500 megawatts. Huang discussed the partnership, which will span the next five years, at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in the nation's capital, Riyadh. The AI company is owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, and will focus on building Arabic large language models, as well as AI infrastructure, including data centers.

AMD also announced a $10 billion partnership with the AI company to build out its AI infrastructure over the next five years.

Disclaimer: Investing carries risk. This is not financial advice. The above content should not be regarded as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation on acquiring or disposing of any financial products, any associated discussions, comments, or posts by author or other users should not be considered as such either. It is solely for general information purpose only, which does not consider your own investment objectives, financial situations or needs. TTM assumes no responsibility or warranty for the accuracy and completeness of the information, investors should do their own research and may seek professional advice before investing.

Most Discussed

  1. 1
     
     
     
     
  2. 2
     
     
     
     
  3. 3
     
     
     
     
  4. 4
     
     
     
     
  5. 5
     
     
     
     
  6. 6
     
     
     
     
  7. 7
     
     
     
     
  8. 8
     
     
     
     
  9. 9
     
     
     
     
  10. 10