NEW YORK, Jan 22, 2026, 09:32 EST — Regular session
- Nvidia shares jumped about 3% in early trade, buoyed by gains across the tech sector.
- A report revealed Nvidia invested $150 million in AI inference startup Baseten.
- With Nvidia’s earnings due in late February, traders are closely watching the uncertainty surrounding China-related chips.
Nvidia (NVDA.O) shares jumped about 3% to $183.32 early Thursday, recovering from a shaky start to the week. The S&P 500 rose roughly 1.1%, and the Nasdaq 100 was up around 1.3%.
Nvidia has become a key indicator of big-tech spending and AI trends. When its stock moves, index funds and fast traders often follow suit.
The stock’s recent surge shows investors wrestling with whether demand is shifting from training huge AI models to scaling operations—and how that might impact Nvidia’s pricing power as competition heats up.
The Wall Street Journal reported Nvidia invested $150 million in Baseten, part of a $300 million funding round that valued the AI startup at $5 billion. Baseten focuses on “inference”—the phase of running AI models after training—a space that’s drawing fresh investment interest across the sector. 1
Mizuho analysts told Barron’s that inference could soon account for 60% to 80% of AI workloads, a big jump from the current 20% to 40%. That shift might drive demand far beyond the largest model builders.
The move comes after Wall Street staged a strong bounce Wednesday, rallying once President Donald Trump unveiled a framework deal on Greenland and stepped back from fresh tariff threats. 2
Still, Nvidia’s China connections remain a concern. Taiwan’s Inventec said this week that China’s green light for Nvidia’s H200 chip “appears to be stuck,” raising fresh questions about shipment delays. 3
At Davos, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei delivered a sharp warning against selling advanced Nvidia chips to China, likening the move to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.” 4
Chip stocks mostly bounced back. Advanced Micro Devices gained about 7.6%, Intel jumped roughly 11.7% in early trading, while Broadcom slipped nearly 1.1%.
The downside is obvious: new tensions with China risk delivery disruptions. Boosting inference capacity could also spark fiercer competition from rivals and custom chips at leading cloud firms. A drop in risk appetite would likely hit Nvidia fast, given how crowded this trade has grown.
Investors are gearing up for Nvidia’s fourth-quarter report on Feb. 25, focused on clues about demand and supply in China. Any signals about product ramp-ups will also be under close scrutiny. 5
