NVIDIA (NVDA) Stock News Today: Groq Inference Deal, China H200 Export Path, HBM4 “Rubin” Supply Signals, and 2026 Analyst Forecasts (Dec. 26, 2025)

December 26, 2025 — NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) is trading around $188.61 in holiday-thinned U.S. markets, with investors juggling a familiar late-year mix: blockbuster AI demand, geopolitics, and a new headline that goes straight to the heart of the next AI battleground—inference (running AI models in real time).

What makes today unusual is how many separate storylines—deal-making, export policy, supply-chain memory, and analyst targets—are colliding around the same core question:

Can NVIDIA keep compounding AI infrastructure dominance as the market shifts from “build the model” to “serve the model”?

NVDA stock today: why NVIDIA is in focus on Dec. 26

Two developments are driving much of the conversation around NVIDIA stock heading into the final trading stretch of 2025:

A strategic licensing-and-talent deal with AI chip startup Groq (not a full acquisition, despite early headlines). ^[1]
Fresh signal flow on NVIDIA’s supply chain and product roadmap, including memory makers accelerating HBM4 timing for NVIDIA’s next-generation AI processors (often referred to as “Rubin” in market coverage). ^[2]

Layered on top is the still-unresolved macro overhang: China export rules for advanced AI chips, where policy has shifted and the practical details (approvals, reviews, routing, potential conditions) may matter as much as the headline permission. ^[3]

NVIDIA–Groq: the deal structure matters more than the rumor

It’s a licensing agreement plus a high-profile talent move

Groq announced on December 24, 2025 that it entered a non-exclusive inference technology licensing agreement with NVIDIA. As part of the arrangement, Groq founder Jonathan Ross, President Sunny Madra, and additional Groq team members will join NVIDIA; Groq says it will continue operating as an independent company with Simon Edwards as CEO, and GroqCloud continues without interruption. ^[4]

Reuters, the Financial Times, and other outlets framed the move as part of a broader Silicon Valley trend: large incumbents licensing technology and selectively hiring rather than outright acquiring, a structure that can reduce (but not eliminate) antitrust friction. ^[5]

Why NVIDIA cares: inference is the next profit pool

NVIDIA already dominates AI training infrastructure (the expensive “make the model smarter” phase). But as AI rolls into products—chatbots, copilots, search, recommendations, enterprise agents—the volume shifts toward inference: the “answer the user in 200 milliseconds” phase.

Groq’s pitch has been specialized inference hardware (often described as emphasizing low latency and efficiency). Reuters noted Groq’s approach involves on-chip memory choices designed to navigate broader memory constraints, underscoring how much the AI race is now about systems engineering, not just raw compute. ^[6]

Wall Street’s early read: NVIDIA is defending the perimeter (and expanding it)

One reason the market is taking the headline seriously: it signals NVIDIA isn’t treating inference challengers as a side quest.

Bank of America reiterated Buy and kept a $275 price objective, describing the development as a meaningful move into “different” hardware relative to NVIDIA’s traditional GPU core—and a nod that inference may require more specialized architectures. BofA also flagged that such a strategy could complicate NVIDIA’s roadmap and pricing over time, even as it potentially strengthens NVIDIA’s competitive position against specialized ASIC and inference players. ^[7]

China and the H200: reopened door, but with extra locks

China remains one of the most complex “known unknowns” for NVIDIA stock because the story isn’t just demand—it’s permission, enforcement, and political timing.

Reuters: NVIDIA aims to ship H200 to China by mid-February 2026—if approvals land

Reuters reported NVIDIA has told Chinese clients it aims to begin H200 shipments to China by mid-February 2026, potentially using 5,000 to 10,000 chip modules from existing inventory—equating to 40,000 to 80,000 H200 chips—with expanded production capacity opening later. But the report also emphasized a key caveat: Beijing’s approval is still pending, and Chinese authorities have considered conditions, including ideas like bundling domestic chips with orders. ^[8]

The U.S. policy twist: exports allowed, plus a fee, plus review mechanics

Separate Reuters reporting described a policy approach that allows H200 exports under a framework involving a 25% fee and a security review process before onward export. Even if the headline reads “exports allowed,” the implementation details can affect margins, timing, and customer behavior. ^[9]

Investor takeaway: for NVDA stock, China is no longer just “on/off.” It’s turning into a governed channel with frictions—and frictions can be just as price-relevant as bans.

HBM4 and “Rubin”: the supply chain is telling the next chapter

Why memory matters as much as GPUs

Modern AI accelerators are hungry beasts. High-bandwidth memory (HBM) is one of the most critical constraints for scaling AI clusters, because training and inference throughput increasingly bottleneck on moving data, not merely compute.

That’s why Dec. 26 reporting about HBM4 timelines is notable for NVIDIA investors: it’s a proxy for whether the next platform cycle remains supply-constrained (supportive of pricing power) or becomes supply-smooth (supportive of volume growth).

Today’s signal: Samsung and SK Hynix accelerating HBM4 timing

An Investing.com report, citing Korean media sourcing, said Samsung plans to begin HBM4 mass production in February 2026, with SK Hynix also set to manufacture the next-generation memory on a similar schedule. The report adds that HBM4 is expected to be used in NVIDIA’s next-generation AI processors, described in the report as codenamed “Rubin.” ^[10]

Earlier Reuters coverage also indicated Samsung was in talks with NVIDIA regarding HBM4 and confirmed collaboration on HBM supply, reinforcing that NVIDIA is actively diversifying and scaling memory sourcing—an important strategic lever in any “AI infrastructure supercycle.” ^[11]

Investor takeaway: If HBM4 ramps cleanly, NVIDIA’s next platform cycle has a better chance of being constrained by demand rather than by missing components. Either can be bullish—but they express differently in margins, delivery schedules, and customer concentration.

NVIDIA fundamentals: the numbers powering the narrative

The market’s willingness to treat NVDA as a “category of one” still rests on financial performance—and NVIDIA’s most recent reported quarter delivered the kind of scale that turns ordinary valuation frameworks into abstract art.

NVIDIA reported Q3 fiscal 2026 revenue of $57.0 billion (record), with Data Center revenue of $51.2 billion, and gross margins in the low-to-mid 70% range. NVIDIA guided Q4 fiscal 2026 revenue to $65.0 billion (±2%). The company also highlighted strong shareholder returns, noting $37.0 billion returned to shareholders over the first nine months of the fiscal year and significant remaining repurchase authorization. ^[12]

Today is also NVIDIA’s scheduled quarterly cash dividend payment date of $0.01 per share (as previously announced). It’s not a yield story—but it’s part of the broader “mature mega-cap with massive cash generation” profile that increasingly defines NVDA. ^[13]

Next major catalyst: NVIDIA earnings date is Feb. 25, 2026

The next key calendar event for NVIDIA stock is the company’s Q4 FY26 financial results on February 25, 2026, per NVIDIA’s investor relations events schedule. ^[14]

Between now and then, traders tend to reprice NVDA on three “pre-earnings” inputs:

Delivery signals (Blackwell-family platforms, networking attach, and any new supply unlocks)
China channel clarity (practical approvals, timing, and economics)
Inference momentum (software + system design + new hardware options that keep workloads on NVIDIA’s platform)

NVDA stock forecast 2026: where analysts are placing their chips

Analyst targets are not reality—they’re structured guesses with spreadsheets and strong opinions. But the shape of those guesses matters, because NVDA is a stock where narrative momentum and estimate revisions can move together.

Here are the forecasts circulating as of late December 2025:

The “strong but not absurd” bull case: $250–$275 range

Wedbush’s Dan Ives has discussed a $250 base-case target for NVIDIA by end of 2026, framing it around earnings power and NVIDIA’s centrality across training, inference, and deployment. ^[15]
Bank of America reiterated Buy and kept a $275 objective, explicitly tying today’s Groq news to the inference transition and competitive positioning. ^[16]

The “still the AI ecosystem of choice” high target: $352

TipRanks highlighted Evercore ISI analyst Mark Lipacis raising a price target to $352 (described as implying ~86% upside from levels around the high-$180s), pointing to NVIDIA’s platform dominance and supply improvements around Blackwell-based systems. ^[17]

Why targets are so wide for NVDA

The spread exists because small assumption changes in:

AI capex durability,
pricing and mix,
memory availability,
and export policy
…can produce very different revenue-and-margin paths at NVIDIA’s scale.

Risks investors are flagging right now (the stuff that can bite)

Even bullish NVDA holders tend to keep a mental checklist of risks, because NVIDIA is now large enough that “small” policy or accounting shifts can ripple into the whole market.

1) Geopolitics and export plumbing

China policy has shifted, but Reuters reporting shows how many moving pieces remain—approval timing, conditions, routing, and economics. ^[18]

2) Competition is real—especially in inference

The Groq move itself is a reminder: inference has more architectural diversity than training, and hyperscalers keep investing in custom silicon. Reuters explicitly placed the deal in the context of Big Tech pursuing alternative AI chips and “acqui-hire” style structures. ^[19]

3) Accounting optics and “earnings quality” debates

A Reuters analysis warned that changes in depreciation assumptions across Big Tech (including companies in NVIDIA’s orbit) can become a market anxiety point—even if cash flow remains unchanged—because it affects how investors perceive profitability and valuation. ^[20]

4) Supply chain dependence (HBM is the new oil)

HBM4 timing and yields can influence how smoothly NVIDIA’s next platform cycle ramps. Today’s HBM4 production-timeline headlines are encouraging, but the memory market is competitive and geopolitically sensitive. ^[21]

What to watch next for NVIDIA stock

As of Dec. 26, 2025, NVIDIA stock is being priced on a tug-of-war between continued AI infrastructure dominance and the realities of scaling into the next phase of AI:

More clarity on the NVIDIA–Groq relationship: how the licensed tech and incoming talent show up (product roadmap, systems, partnerships, or internal inference accelerators). ^[22]
China H200 execution: approvals, shipping cadence, and whether “allowed exports” translates into meaningful revenue at attractive economics. ^[23]
HBM4 ramp and supplier mix: signals from Samsung/SK Hynix and NVIDIA’s ecosystem about readiness for the next-generation platform cycle. ^[24]
Earnings on Feb. 25, 2026: the next major checkpoint where guidance, margins, and demand visibility can reset the entire NVDA narrative in a single after-hours print. ^[25]

NVIDIA remains the market’s AI bellwether—but increasingly, it’s also the bellwether for how the AI economy industrializes: from training clusters to inference factories, from GPU scarcity to memory scarcity, from one product cycle to an assembly line of platform cycles.