Nvidia was propelled to its current highs by the development of AI, but is it still one of the best ways to play it?
Without a doubt, Nvidia (NVDA +8.01%) has been the biggest story of the stock market in the first half of this decade. It became a $1 trillion company in 2023, and it has since grown to $4.38 trillion, briefly breaking $5 trillion in late 2025.
The company is the go-to hardware provider for dozens of companies looking to develop or expand their artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities like Alphabet, which, despite developing its own Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) to reduce dependence on Nvidia, still uses Nvidia hardware.
Even companies that aren’t directly focused on AI like Mercedes-Benz or Illumina go to Nvidia for their AI hardware needs. And the majority of language models released in 2025 have been built for Nvidia hardware.
There are some concerning headlines about OpenAI and other companies looking to move away from Nvidia hardware. But, based on the company’s latest results, its current bull run is showing no signs of stopping, or even slowing down for that matter.
So, is Nvidia still the way to go for an AI hardware play? Let’s take a look.
Image source: Getty Images.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown, but full is their wallet
Nvidia got to where it is by building some of the most advanced hardware on the market. Its Blackwell chip became the subject of negotiations between the United States and China. And its next-gen Rubin GPU has 5 times the inference capabilities of Blackwell.
And between it and the associated Vera CPU, it will take 25% fewer GPUs to train a new model when compared to Blackwell.
Finally, it’s also worth noting that Nvidia has a full-stack AI hardware product line for training, inference, and simulation. So, it can provide all the hardware you need to run AI and because they’re all Nvidia’s they will play nicely with one another.
Now, on to the financial end where you will see why the entire market watches with bated breath every time Nvidia releases earnings.
Today’s Change
(8.01%) $13.77
Current Price
$185.65
Key Data Points
Market Cap
$4.5T
Day’s Range
$174.62 – $187.00
52wk Range
$86.62 – $212.19
Volume
8.9M
Avg Vol
183M
Gross Margin
70.05%
Dividend Yield
0.02%
Machine earning
Despite Nvidia’s incredible size, it’s still growing like a much smaller company. In its latest results for Q3 of its fiscal 2026 (ended Oct. 26, 2025), Nvidia recorded 62% year-over-year revenue growth, topping $57 billion for the quarter. Operating income surged 65% to $36 billion. And the company’s diluted earnings per share (EPS) grew 67%.
Also in that quarter, the company reduced its long-term debt by 4.7% and it holds total debt of $10.8 billion to a net cash position of $11.49 billion. And it grew that cash position 26% year over year.
Nvidia’s free cash flow grew 31.5% year over year and its operating free cash flow grew 34.7% year over year. Its gross margin is sitting at 70%, its operating margin at 58%, and its net margin at 53%.
In short, Nvidia has rapidly growing revenue and income, it has manageable debt and a large cash position, it is incredibly profitable, and it continues to be a leader in the AI hardware market both in terms of market share and the sophistication of its product lines.
While past performance is no indication of future success, when a company consistently posts incredible growth then the odds of strong continued performance go up. Despite OpenAI looking to replace it, Nvidia remains the go-to hardware company for AI efforts and it’s definitely worth a look for 2026.