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Two techie things have been pulling on my thoughts in 2025 — the apparently unstoppable rise of Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) shares, and talk of an AI bubble waiting to burst.
Nvidia just got a boost from plans to start exporting its second-most powerful AI chips to Chinese clients by mid-February, reported Reuters. It follows President Trump’s move to allow exports of H200 processors, for a 25% government fee.
That helped get Nvidia shares moving up again after dipping from their all-time high in October. Even down a bit since then, we’re still looking at a stunning five-year gain of more than 1,200%.
Competition
In the longer term, will the deal hold up? I can see a chance a future US administration might re-adopt Biden-era policies of restricting high-tech exports to China. And what about Chinese AI developers? Do they want to be reliant on US supplies? Industry leaders, including search giant Baidu, have already revealed plans for advanced AI processor launches in 2026 and 2027.
So that’s one of the cautions I see surrounding Nvidia as an investment. Yes, it’s an early mover in migrating graphics processors over to AI demand, which their architecture suits well. But the early movers don’t always hold the market in the longer term. Other US chipmakers, like AMD, Intel, and Qualcomm, must be considered threats. And then we have Alphabet‘s Google and Amazon Web Services among those also developing their own custom chips.
Shares still cheap?
Even against that background of growing competition though, I don’t see Nvidia shares as particularly overvalued. A forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of under 40, dropping to 20 based on 2027 analyst forecasts, doesn’t scare me. If I compare that with Tesla‘s forward P/E of 375, well, I think that really might be crazy — but that’s for another day.
And the forthcoming combination of Vera and Rubin processors to take AI processing power to a new level way ahead of any competition… that could keep Nvidia shares on the up for a while longer.
So far, I’ve only briefly touched on the elephant in the room — AI spending, and whether it really can continue the way it’s going.
Soaring AI spend, or not?
Estimates suggest the big AI spenders ploughed around $400bn into related developments in 2025. And some are predicting hyperscaler spend could soar as high as $2trn in 2026.
For that to make any sense at all, AI will need to start generating some seriously big profits — sooner or later. And the form and timescale of that is far from certain. Even ChatGPT pioneer OpenAI is still forecast to post losses at least until 2030.
So how much AI excitement is hype, and how much is grounded in reality? And of the hype portion, how much is factored into the forecasts that make Nvidia shares still appear reasonably priced? Those are questions investors considering Nvidia shares might want to ponder.
Here’s what I think…
I definitely expect one thing from Nvidia in 2026, and that’s a fair bit of share price volatility. Other than that, predicting either riches or ruin is beyond me. And that’s why I’m not buying Nvidia shares.
