Nvidia's Jensen Huang Just Made a Startling Prediction. Here's What it Means for Nvidia's Stock Price.

Investors' eyes are on Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) this week. That's because the artificial intelligence (AI) giant is holding one of its most anticipated events of the year: its AI conference, known as GTC. During the event, Nvidia offers the world a glimpse into its latest AI accomplishments and into what's ahead for the company and the industry. The event also includes more than 1,000 sessions involving industry experts and AI companies.

To kick things off, Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang gives a keynote, walking the audience through the developments on the horizon. And this time around, Huang made a startling prediction. Let's take a look at his words -- and consider what they mean for Nvidia stock.

Image source: Getty Images.

From chips to an AI empire

To put Huang's words into perspective, let's quickly run through the Nvidia story so far. A few years ago, the industry looked at Nvidia as the AI chip leader, selling the world's fastest graphics processing units (GPUs) -- these are the chips powering key AI tasks. Nvidia still holds this position, but importantly, it's expanded considerably since then and has built a complete AI empire.

Nvidia sells entire systems, including multiple chips and networking tools, for example, and has expanded its reach into many industries. Healthcare companies and automakers use the company's platforms, specifically designed to address their needs. And just last year, Nvidia announced its reach into telecom, bringing AI to the development of 6G through a partnership with Nokia.

This general expansion has supercharged revenue, helping Nvidia reach record levels. In the latest full year, revenue exploded higher by 65% to reach more than $215 billion.

Now, let's consider Huang's startling prediction. It starts with a comment he made in October. Then, he said that Nvidia's data center orders, including chips, related products, and full systems, for the current year and 2026 totaled $500 billion.

During his GTC keynote this week, Huang offered a prediction: He sees "at least $1 trillion" in revenue from these products through 2027.

"I am certain computing demand will be much higher than that," he added.

This is startling -- in a positive way -- as it comes only five months after his earlier forecast, suggesting enormous momentum in orders in recent months. Also, Huang's words imply that, from what he's seen so far, he thinks revenue could surpass the level of $1 trillion.

Nvidia's next big launch

It's important to note that Nvidia has a big launch coming up, the release of the company's Vera Rubin system this year. The platform, in full production now, includes seven chips -- one is the new Rubin central processing unit (CPU) -- and is built to handle each phase of AI, from pretraining to agentic inference. The orders Huang refers to include the current platform, Blackwell, as well as this upcoming release.

And with this launch right around the corner of a system designed to increase performance, and therefore progressively lower total cost of ownership, Nvidia may continue to see strong growth in orders in the coming months.

Now, let's return to our question: What does this mean for Nvidia stock performance? Though Nvidia shares have climbed 1,200% over the past five years, in recent times, they've stumbled. The stock is little changed so far this year.

Some investors have worried about rivals weighing on demand for Nvidia's products or the level of AI investment potentially falling. Meanwhile, geopolitical and economic concerns have added to the uncertainty, hurting demand for growth stocks.

These headwinds may be temporary. Nvidia's focus on innovation has kept it well ahead of rivals, so customers looking for top performance in AI continue to head for Nvidia. Demand for AI products remains high, and we've heard that from Nvidia and its peers. Finally, geopolitical and economic headwinds come and go throughout time -- and quality companies always see their share prices bounce back when concerns ease.

When we set aside the current pressure on Nvidia stock, the path to outstanding performance looks clear. If Nvidia reaches beyond $1 trillion in revenue over the next year or so, as Huang predicts, this accomplishment could power the stock considerably higher.

Adria Cimino has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.