Nvidia's Stock Soars as Citi Raises Price Target on Expanding AI Opportunities

Citi raises price target on Nvidia, citing expanding AI opportunity

Citi see an expanding market for Nvidia's AI business as the company leads global sovereign AI build-outs and continues to scale Blackwell. Analyst Atif Malik raised his price target on Nvidia to $190 from $180, which suggests shares can jump 19.2% from their latest close. Malik's bullish thesis is partly driven by the uptick in sovereign AI demand , which refers to nations' efforts to produce and control their own AI infrastructure and data. "We believe sovereign demand is already contributing up to billions of dollars in 2025 and expect the mix of sovereign AI sales to step up in 2026," Malik wrote in a Monday note to clients. "Nvidia has line of sight to 10s of GW over the next couple of years for enterprise and sovereign AI factory buildouts and the company is involved in essentially every sovereign deal (1GW ~ $50B of Nvidia sales)." He modeled his 2028 total addressable market for Nvidia's data center, semis and AI businesses to reach $563 billion, 13% higher than his prior estimate. He also lifted his expectations on Nvidia's networking segment to $119 billion from $90 billion, citing larger AI training clusters and emerging scale-up intra-networking opportunities. Nvidia's Blackwell ramp is another bright spot for the stock story, according to Malik. "Regarding the pace of rack buildouts of GB200, we believe the concerns of potential bottlenecks in terms of supply are no longer justified as deployments are happening at a rapid pace," he said. "On GB300, we expect smooth transition as Nvidia likely learned from Hopper to B200 transition." CoreWeave last week became the first cloud provider to deploy systems that include Nvidia's next-generation GB300 NVL72 AI systems, also known as its Blackwell Ultra chips. Nvidia has said that Blackwell Ultra can produce 50 times more AI content compared to its predecessor, Blackwell.

Nvidia Stock Gets Price Target Bump From Citi on 'Sovereign AI' Demand Surge

Last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang announced multiple sovereign AI partnerships during a European tour. Nvidia (NVDA) is poised to take advantage of growing demand for sovereign artificial intelligence, Citi analysts wrote Monday, as governments and other organizations invest heavily in AI. The bank raised its price target for Nvidia stock to $190 from $180, lifting it further above the Visible Alpha analyst consensus of $174. Citi expects the AI data center market to reach $563 billion in 2028, up from a prior estimate of $500 billion, based on higher-than-expected sovereign AI demand. That benefits Nvidia, which is "involved in essentially every sovereign deal," Citi said. Sovereign AI refers to artificial intelligence capabilities developed for a single entity, often a national government, run on systems under that entity's control. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang last month announced multiple sovereign AI partnerships during a European tour that included stops in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. The semiconductor titan also recently partnered with Humain, an AI subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. Bank of America analysts have said they expect "every major country" to invest in sovereign AI, "generating high-tech employment, and serving critical healthcare, defense, industrial, financial and cyber needs." Oppenheimer said the global sovereign AI market could be $1.5 trillion, including $120 billion in Europe. Shares of Nvidia were less than 1% lower in recent trading Monday. They ended last week at a record high.