Investors and analysts are eagerly looking forward to Nvidia's upcoming results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2026 (ended April 27), which will be released on May 28. That's not surprising as the company is the largest player in the fast-growing market for artificial intelligence (AI) chips.
Nvidia's chips power AI data centers of major cloud computing companies and governments around the world, and the company's growth has taken off remarkably in the past couple of years thanks to the robust demand for its graphics processing units (GPUs). There is a good chance that this semiconductor stock could sustain its recent rally after its upcoming report.
However, there's another company that's going to release its results just after Nvidia's. Marvell Technology (MRVL 1.90%), another key player in the AI chip market, will be reporting its fiscal 2026 first-quarter results on May 29. The stock has been hammered so far this year, but don't be surprised to see it start soaring after its quarterly report.
Let's see why Marvell stock could be set for a breakout after May 29.
Image source: Getty Images
Marvell Technology is set to deliver outstanding growth
Marvell Technology has guided for $1.88 billion in revenue for fiscal Q1 along with non-GAAP earnings of $0.61 per share. Those numbers would be a massive improvement over the year-ago period when the company reported adjusted earnings of $0.24 per share on revenue of $1.16 billion. This outstanding growth is going to be driven by the terrific demand for the company's custom AI processors and networking chips.
Marvell's custom AI processors are used by the likes of Amazon, Alphabet's Google, and Microsoft to power their AI data centers. Marvell management remarked on the company's March earnings conference call that it is witnessing stronger-than-expected demand from its AI customers. The good part is that these cloud giants are strengthening their relationships with the chipmaker, as they are working with Marvell on deploying its next-generation custom AI silicon as well.
As a result, Marvell is anticipating its custom AI chip revenue to increase in fiscal 2026 and beyond. It is worth noting that Marvell's AI revenue in the previous fiscal year was well above its target of $1.5 billion. The company expects to "significantly exceed our $2.5 billion target in fiscal 2026." That won't be surprising, since the company is looking to win more share of the custom AI chip market from bigger rival Broadcom through its product development moves and partnerships.
Marvell revealed a 2-nanometer (nm) custom chip architecture in March of this year, which will be an improvement over the 3nm platform on which the company is currently building its chips. The move to a smaller process node should allow Marvell to pack more transistors into a smaller area, making the chips built on the 2nm node more powerful and power-efficient at the same time.
Additionally, Marvell recently announced that it is partnering with Nvidia to use the latter's NVLink Fusion platform. This platform will allow third-party chip manufacturers such as Marvell to build custom AI processors that can work in tandem with Nvidia's GPUs. Such a partnership could help Marvell make a bigger dent in the custom AI silicon market, which it expects to grow at a compound annual rate of 45% through 2028. So, Marvell's eye-popping growth is likely to continue beyond the recently concluded quarter.
In all, the company seems poised to deliver a solid set of results along with robust guidance when it releases its quarterly report on May 29. That could help turn the stock's fortunes around following a 45% drop so far in 2025. But the good part is that this steep drop has made Marvell stock incredibly cheap to buy right now.
The valuation and the growth potential make this AI stock a top buy
Marvell's sharp pullback this year is the reason why it is trading at 22 times earnings. For a company whose earnings are predicted to jump by 77% in the current fiscal year to $2.79 per share, buying Marvell at this valuation looks like a no-brainer.
Assuming Marvell indeed hits this mark at the end of the current fiscal year and trades in line with the tech-laden Nasdaq-100 index's earnings multiple of 31 after a year (using the index as a proxy for tech stocks), its stock price could jump to $87. That would be a 45% jump from current levels. Meanwhile, the 12-month price target of $97, as per 38 analysts covering this AI stock, points toward stronger gains, giving investors another reason to buy Marvell Technology, since its upcoming report could trigger a bull run.
