Nvidia Shares Jump Nearly 4% After SpaceX Names Chipmaker Its Exclusive AI Hardware Provider

Nvidia shares climbed to $219.78 by mid-morning Wednesday, up 3.70%, after SpaceX confirmed the chipmaker would serve as the exclusive hardware provider for the space and technology company’s future artificial intelligence infrastructure, a deal that expands Nvidia’s reach beyond the traditional data center customers that have driven its rapid growth in recent years.

The gain came even as several of Nvidia’s chipmaking peers, including AMD, Intel and Micron, traded lower Wednesday, a divergence that traders attributed directly to the newly disclosed SpaceX partnership rather than broader sector-wide momentum.

SpaceX Commits to Nvidia Exclusively

The announcement came during SpaceX’s first earnings call as a newly public company, where Chief Executive Elon Musk confirmed the company would standardize its artificial intelligence infrastructure entirely on Nvidia hardware. The decision hands Nvidia another major AI customer and extends its opportunity into new categories of infrastructure investment beyond the hyperscale cloud providers that have historically represented the bulk of its data center revenue.

SpaceX’s own results underscored the scale of its ambitions in this area. The company reported second-quarter capital expenditures of $18.4 billion, with roughly $15.8 billion, or about 86% of that total, directed toward expanding AI computing and cloud infrastructure. SpaceX said it expects to have more than 2 gigawatts of AI computing capacity online by the end of 2026, with that figure growing toward 10 gigawatts in 2027, while the broader power and cooling infrastructure supporting those systems is being designed to eventually handle between 15 and 20 gigawatts of capacity. Musk also used the call to preview upcoming updates to the company’s Grok AI models, saying Grok 4.6 would launch the following week, followed by Grok 4.7, with Grok 5 expected before the end of the year.

A Broader Market Rally Provides Additional Support

Nvidia’s advance also came amid a broader rally across global equity markets tied to easing geopolitical tensions surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and growing optimism over continued artificial intelligence infrastructure spending. Global risk appetite rebounded significantly this week, with major asset classes strengthening in tandem as risk premiums declined following the de-escalation in U.S.-Iran tensions, alongside cooling inflation expectations and continued strength in AI-related capital spending.

That rally extended well beyond U.S. markets. Japanese and South Korean stock indexes opened sharply higher Wednesday, driven by an overnight rally in U.S. technology and semiconductor shares. South Korea’s SK Hynix rose 7%, Samsung Electronics gained more than 4%, Japan’s SoftBank surged 9%, and Kioxia climbed 7%, reflecting broad-based enthusiasm across the Asian semiconductor supply chain that feeds into the broader AI infrastructure buildout Nvidia sits at the center of.

A Disappointing Year So Far, Despite Wednesday’s Gain

Despite Wednesday’s rally, Nvidia’s stock has trailed the broader market for much of 2026, a departure from the pattern of the past three years, when the company’s shares consistently outpaced the S&P 500 during the first half of the year. Prior to Wednesday’s gain, Nvidia had risen only about 2% for the year, compared with roughly a 7% advance for the S&P 500 over the same period, according to recent market analysis.

That underperformance has come even as Nvidia’s underlying business has continued to benefit from the ongoing AI data center buildout, with the company’s graphics processing units widely regarded as the industry standard for AI computing workloads. Nearly every major company operating in the artificial intelligence space runs at least a portion of its computing workloads on Nvidia hardware, a dynamic that has continued to support demand even as the stock’s valuation has cooled somewhat from its earlier highs.

Looking Ahead to Nvidia’s Own Earnings

Nvidia is scheduled to report its own second-quarter fiscal 2027 results on Aug. 26, an event that some market analysts have pointed to as a potential turning point for the stock after its relatively muted performance so far this year. Wall Street analysts are expecting revenue growth of approximately 96% for the quarter, according to recent estimates, with some analysts suggesting the company’s historical pattern of exceeding expectations could push that growth rate back into triple digits.

Continued signals from major AI hyperscalers about sustained or increasing capital expenditure plans have reinforced investor confidence that current AI infrastructure investment levels are likely to persist well into 2027, according to recent market commentary, helping ease earlier concerns among some investors about a potential plateau in AI-related spending.

Technical Signals Remain Constructive

From a trading perspective, Nvidia has continued to show relatively strong technical momentum in recent sessions. According to market data compiled through Tuesday, the stock carried a Buy Candidate rating from one closely tracked technical scoring service, with the rating unchanged from the prior session’s evaluation. Since a buy signal was first identified earlier this week, the stock had already risen more than 2% heading into Wednesday’s session, even as some technical indicators pointed to increasingly overbought conditions following the stock’s recent advance.

Nvidia’s market capitalization stood at approximately $5.133 trillion as of Tuesday’s close, reflecting the company’s continued position as one of the most valuable publicly traded companies in the world, underpinned by its central role in the ongoing global buildout of artificial intelligence computing infrastructure.

A Widening AI Customer Base

The SpaceX partnership adds to a growing list of major technology companies and infrastructure operators that have committed to building out AI capabilities on Nvidia’s hardware platform, reinforcing the company’s position at the center of the broader AI investment cycle even as competition from rival chipmakers continues to intensify. With SpaceX’s own AI infrastructure ambitions scaling rapidly and additional capacity commitments already outlined through 2027, investors are likely to watch closely for further details on how quickly that partnership translates into concrete revenue for Nvidia in the coming quarters, alongside the company’s own upcoming earnings report later this month, which is expected to offer the clearest signal yet on whether the current AI infrastructure spending cycle remains as robust as recent corporate commentary suggests.