Target price is $250! Top Wall Street analysts assert: Nvidia (NVDA.US) AI feast is only in its third year

The Zhitong Finance App learned that in the field of technology stock investment, the rise of Nvidia (NVDA.US) is certainly a compelling story. Dan Ives (Dan Ives), a senior tech analyst at Wedbush Securities (Wedbush Securities), recently gave Nvidia a target price target of up to $250. This bold prediction attracted widespread attention in the market. Ives believes that Wall Street has yet to fully recognize Nvidia's huge profit potential in the field of artificial intelligence, especially the all-round key role in the AI technology system, from training to reasoning to actual deployment.

This article will explore in depth Nvidia's transformation from a gaming graphics card company in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to now a core force in the new era of computing, and its astonishing rise in market value to $4 trillion in just a few years. At the same time, we will also analyze Ives's sources of confidence in Nvidia's future development, including its strategic layout and market positioning in the AI field, and the long-term growth potential brought by current companies in the early stages of AI adoption.

How did Nvidia use three years to go from gaming cards to the king of AI infrastructure?

In the years when the COVID-19 pandemic raged, most coverage of Nvidia (NVDA.US) in the market focused only on its gaming graphics card business. According to StatMuse statistics, at the close of the market in November 2021, after stock splitting adjustments, Nvidia's stock price was about $32. This price is almost equivalent to the cost of going to McDonald's for two meals.

Of course, it can still be considered a steady performance technology stock, with a market capitalization of 81 billion US dollars, yet in the field of artificial intelligence, it is far from being the core support. Then, at the end of 2022, OpenAI released ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that is now ubiquitous. In an instant, the development context of everything became clear and discernible.

Almost overnight, Nvidia ceased to be a niche technology investment target, but became a key component of a new era of computing.

From 2024 to 2025, Nvidia's market capitalization soared to over $3 trillion, then surpassed $4 trillion (50 times the value at the end of 2021), according to S&P Global. If 10,000 US dollars were invested in Nvidia about three years ago, that investment has probably completely changed, and the value has climbed to an impressive $123,000, an increase of 1132%.

Over the past year, Nvidia has brought investors around 40% in revenue. Since then, the narrative has continued to expand, and Nvidia has become a key enabler in the artificial intelligence arms race.

Nvidia's AI dividend continues, Dan Ives calls out a target price of $250

This background helps explain why veteran tech analyst Dan Ives is still highly recommended. Ives believes that “Mr. Market” is still underestimating the scale and duration of this artificial intelligence construction.

He has now set a dizzying price target for Nvidia and expects its share price to reach $250 by the end of 2026, which represents a 32.5% increase from the current $188.61 (close of December 24). Ives bets that the AI story some investors thought they had missed has only just begun.

Dan Ives is the managing director and head of global technology research at Wadbush Securities, and one of the most frequently cited analysts in the Wall Street tech sector. What's unique is that he dares to boldly give big numbers when explaining major topics, and then explains the logic behind them in plain language on TV.

Ives has established an outstanding reputation in the industry due to its early involvement in the technology cycle. He covers a wide range of fields, covering cutting-edge sectors such as cloud computing, electric vehicles, and the current stock market boom driven by strong artificial intelligence. His investment strategy has distinct characteristics, focusing on pursuing long-term and continuous growth, focusing on catalyst-driven technology, while maintaining a keen insight and focus on major platform changes.

To give you an intuitive reference, Ives was rated as a five-star analyst on the TipRanks website. Surprisingly, out of up to 500 ratings, his success rate was 56%, and the average return on each rating was around 16%. His past performance was significant, especially when he made bold predictions, and these achievements added credibility and persuasiveness to him.

Why does Dan Ives think Nvidia will reach $250 by the end of 2026?

According to Ives, his prediction for Nvidia as high as $250 depends entirely on Wall Street's profit potential yet to be fully modeled. In an interview, he pointed out that the market still underestimates Nvidia's key role in every part of the AI technology system, covering everything from training to reasoning to actual deployment.

His incredible confidence in this stock is mainly due to Nvidia's massive size and market positioning. Nvidia is upstream of hyperscale cloud service providers, enterprises, and governments, and these agencies are racing to advance the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure.

Nvidia's timeline for repositioning financial performance within three years:

January 2022: $9.8 billion, which is the benchmark year before AI earnings start to show.

January 2023: $4.4 billion (55% year-over-year decrease), a year of declining performance as video game giants' gaming-related and data center requirements weakened before the AI boom.

January 2024: $29.8 billion (up 581% year over year), a turning point for artificial intelligence.

January 2025: At $72.9 billion (up 145% year over year), the scale effect came into play, profit margins increased dramatically, and Nvidia's dominant position in the field of artificial intelligence was reflected in profits.

The past 12 months: $99.2 billion, an annualized level of revenue that was almost unimaginable two years ago.

Ives further pointed out that given that the adoption process of enterprises in the field of artificial intelligence is still far from mature, the current complex and changing geopolitical landscape and continuously evolving trade dynamics, no reasonable pricing evaluation has been obtained in the capital market. Because of this, even if there is only a slight increase in the predicted values, the relevant calculation results will quickly become reasonable. After all, the development of artificial intelligence is still in its infancy.

According to Ives, the biggest mistake investors continue to make is that they think the investment market in the field of artificial intelligence is already too crowded. In fact, he believes the opposite is true; the market is only in the third year of an eight-year to ten-year construction cycle, which is why market turbulence has not broken potential trends.

To further clarify his views, he said that currently only about 3% of companies in the US actually use artificial intelligence effectively, and most companies are still in the evaluation or pilot phase. As a result, Ives focuses less on the hype cycle and more on business-related expenses. Today, businesses are budgeting rather than just experimenting as in the past.

In fact, Goldman Sachs said AI companies could invest more than $500 billion by 2026, saying analysts' predictions of capital expenditure have always underestimated the scale of construction. Capital spending related to artificial intelligence infrastructure grew much faster than expected, which surprised investors who were too confused about the market pullback a year ago.

In addition to this, Ives also pointed out that a major geopolitical transformation is taking place and working. He believes that for the first time in decades, America has regained a decisive lead over China in the field of core technology, which adds a new level to the story of artificial intelligence.