Nvidia's Top AI Event Is Here: Will Nvidia Stock Rise During the Week of March 16?

Artificial intelligence (AI) tech leader Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is set to host its flagship GTC 2026 (GTC stands for GPU Technology Conference) next week. It will run Monday, March 16, through Thursday, March 19, at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, California. This annual Silicon Valley happening is the world's leading AI event.

The company is expecting 39,000 attendees from 190 countries. There will be over 700 workshops, covering "everything from physical AI [driverless vehicles and robotics], and AI factories to agentic AI and inference," nearly 400 exhibitors, and over 70 hands-on training labs, according to Nvidia.

Image source: Getty Images.

Don't miss CEO Jensen Huang's GTC 2026 keynote -- it will be livestreamed for free

CEO Jensen Huang will deliver the keynote address at the SAP Center in San Jose on Monday, March 16, at 11 a.m. PT. It's scheduled for two hours.

This event will be livestreamed, and afterward, a recording will be available on Nvidia's investor relations website. I highly recommend investors and potential investors in Nvidia stock watch this event. I can almost guarantee you will learn things that other individual investors don't know, giving you a competitive advantage.

Huang's keynote will reportedly cover the full AI stack -- chips, software, models, and applications. On that note, what I don't think some folks realize is that Nvidia is so much more than "just" an AI chip company these days; it's an AI infrastructure company with full-stack offerings. This gives it a competitive advantage over more typical chip companies.

Huang will take the stage again on Wednesday, March 18, at 12:30 p.m. PT to moderate a panel on open-source vs. closed-source AI models. Leaders from several developers of AI models will join him, including Cursor, a closed-source AI model developer, and Thinking Machines Lab, which is developing open-source, customizable models.

Nvidia is invested in both of these private companies. In November, it joined Cursor's $2.3 billion Series D funding round. Just this past week, it announced a strategic partnership and "significant investment" in Thinking Machines Lab. The company is led by Mira Murati, the former chief technical officer (CTO) at OpenAI, best known for its ChatGPT chatbot.

Impressive list of GTC 2026 speakers

As usual, this Nvidia event will feature an impressive list of speakers. Some of those from publicly traded companies that investors might find the most interesting include:

• Chris Malachowsky, co-founder of Nvidia
• Deepu Talla, head of robotics and edge AI at Nvidia
• Ashok Elluswamy, head of AI software at Tesla
• Executives from Amazon and Alphabet's Google
• Executives from ride-hailing leaders Uber and Lyft

3 Out of the Last 4 GTCs Have Given Nvidia Stock a Solid Boost

Nvidia stock did not get a boost from last year's event, but that was due to the poor overall market. Stocks had a horrible March 2025 due to President Trump's announcement of planned significant global tariffs.

In 2024, however, Nvidia stock got a significant lift from GTC 2024. It increased 7.4% for the week, versus 2.4% for the S&P 500 index.

Moreover, Nvidia stock also got a nice boost from GTC 2023. It gained 5.7% from Monday, March 20, to Thursday, March 23. The S&P 500 dropped 0.8% over this period.

In addition, GTC 2022 also provided a solid tailwind for Nvidia stock. It gained 6.4% from Monday, March 21, through Thursday, March 24. The S&P 500 rose 1.3% over this period.

Let's hope for another boost from this year's GTC, though that might be tougher than usual given the broader market's struggles due to the Iran war and soaring oil prices.

Beth McKenna has positions in Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Lyft, Nvidia, Tesla, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.