Wall Street was generally in an upbeat mood on Tuesday morning. Coming out of the long holiday weekend, investors were ready to celebrate the announcement of an agreement in principle on raising the U.S. debt ceiling, which had been a key overhang over the stock market. Futures on the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 1.59%) were up another 1.5% in premarket trading Tuesday morning after solid gains last week.
Nvidia (NVDA 3.65%) is establishing itself as a premier artificial intelligence (AI) stock, and after a massive gain spurred by strong earnings results last week, the chipmaker found its shares rising again early Tuesday. Also, Tesla (TSLA 1.85%) continued its recent rebound as its CEO made a big trip to support what will be an essential part of its long-term business.
Nvidia keeps innovating
Shares of Nvidia were up another 5% in premarket trading Tuesday morning. The tech giant followed up on last week's earnings report by releasing new products and services linked to artificial intelligence.
A flurry of news releases from Nvidia catalogued its latest developments. The DGX large-memory AI supercomputer will help enable development of next-generation models for generative AI language applications and data analytics workloads, using technology that combines 256 GH200 "superchips" to function together as a single graphics processing unit. Nvidia also said that the GH200 is in full production to support the DGX supercomputer and other systems coming online in the near future to run complex AI workloads.
Nvidia also gave its gaming business a new advance, with its Avatar Cloud Engine acting as a custom AI model foundry service that lets non-player characters be a more integral part of games by giving game designers the chance to use AI-powered natural language interactions. This could make games much more interactive, and Nvidia sees a lot of potential for generative AI in the video game industry more broadly.
If the stock holds its gains, Nvidia will become the latest company to reach $1 trillion in market capitalization. That's a huge step forward for the chipmaker, and it highlights the extent to which artificial intelligence is playing a key role in growth across the tech sector.
Musk in China
Meanwhile, shares of Tesla rose nearly 4% in premarket trading. That took the automaker's stock above the $200-per-share level, as investors watched to see what CEO Elon Musk would do on a trip across the Pacific.
Musk traveled to China, meeting with the foreign minister and other high-level officials as well as taking the opportunity to visit Tesla's Gigafactory facility in Shanghai. Discussions reportedly covered several topics, including the possibility for further expansion of Tesla production facilities in the country, according to statements released by the Chinese government.
Musk has been vocal about the need for the U.S. and China to work cooperatively, given the extent to which the world's two largest economies are interdependent. Yet Tesla also stands to benefit considerably from aiming to improve its own relationship with Beijing, especially given China's race to adopt electric vehicle technology and the size of its consumer population.
Shareholders also see Tesla as an AI leader, especially as it pushes its autonomous driving efforts forward. Even after its gains, though, the stock trades at only about half its value at its 2021 highs, and that leaves a long road for Tesla to accelerate as its business keeps expanding.
