Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to gain momentum as companies invest billions of dollars in data centers and other infrastructure, fueling a technological arms race for AI dominance.
Nvidia (NVDA 3.17%) is one of the biggest winners, amassing a dominant share of the chips used in AI data centers. Nvidia's top and bottom lines multiplied, and the stock generated life-changing returns on its way to becoming the world's largest technology company by market capitalization.
It's only natural to wonder whether Nvidia can sustain this success, or speculate about what the future might hold. Is the stock, now valued at $4.2 trillion, still worth buying at this point?
My prediction is that Nvidia will be worth $10 trillion in a decade. I'll walk you through the rationale for that below.
Image source: Getty Images.
AI could be a genuine once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
Experts believe that artificial intelligence (AI) will change the world. Research from Morgan Stanley estimates that AI could eventually create a $40 trillion total addressable market. The staggering sums of money companies continue to invest in developing AI models and infrastructure speak volumes about what companies think about AI's potential.
McKinsey & Company estimates that data center investments over the next five years alone might clear $7 trillion. Over the next five years and beyond, new industries will reach their stride. Perhaps humanoid robotics will go from prototypes to mainstays in people's homes. Self-driving vehicles may go from a novelty to the norm.
All these machines may require cutting-edge chip technology to enable AI to function at such a localized level and in real time. Sure, Nvidia has become a data center story, but it's not the entire story.
Nvidia undoubtedly knows this and is planning for the future. It already offers a hardware and software ecosystem aimed at these emerging industries.
Even if Nvidia doesn't dominate every AI-related market like it has in data centers, it's hard to bet against Nvidia until another company takes the crown. Until then, it will likely remain a central player in everything related to AI.
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
Why Nvidia could continue to grow
As you might expect, Nvidia will need to continue growing rapidly to achieve such a high valuation. With data center spending expected to continue, the company is looking forward to some additional exciting developments.
Nvidia recently received approval from the U.S. government to resume selling H20 chips to China after it tightened its export controls earlier this year. A Wall Street analyst estimated that Nvidia could see an additional $15 billion in sales over the second half of this year.
The company is also gearing up for its upcoming superchip, Rubin, the successor to Blackwell, and Vera, Nvidia's first custom CPU designed to work with it. Nvidia has reportedly accelerated its development and could start shipping sample R100 chips to customers as early as September. If Blackwell's success is any indication, the top AI companies will jump on the performance improvements the new architecture will offer.
A $10 trillion stock? Mapping out Nvidia's trajectory to 2035
Wall Street analysts estimate that Nvidia will generate $200 billion in sales this year (Nvidia's fiscal year 2026), representing a 53% increase from the prior year. Analysts currently have next year's revenue estimate at $253 billion, implying a 26% increase.
I will assume that revenue growth continues to slow. I want to stay rational here. The larger numbers make it harder to sustain such high growth rates.
Hypothetically, let's speculate that Nvidia grows revenue by an average of 15% annually from fiscal years 2028 through 2030, then by 10% annually from 2031 through 2035:
| Fiscal Year | Revenue Growth | Fiscal Year Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 53% | $200 billion |
| 2027 | 26% | $253 billion |
| 2028 | 15% | $291 billion |
| 2029 | 15% | $334 billion |
| 2030 | 15% | $384 billion |
| 2031 | 10% | $422 billion |
| 2032 | 10% | $464 billion |
| 2033 | 10% | $511 billion |
| 2034 | 10% | $562 billion |
| 2035 | 10% | $618 billion |
Data source: The author created this table using data from Ycharts and hypothetical figures.
That would result in Nvidia's revenue reaching $618 billion in fiscal year 2035, which would end at the beginning of the calendar year 2035.
From there, it comes down to valuation. Nvidia trades at a price-to-sales (P/S) ratio of 29, and that fluctuated between 20 and 40 since the AI boom began in early 2023. The stock only needs to trade at just over 16 times Nvidia's estimated 2035 sales to arrive at a $10 trillion valuation.
That seems pretty reasonable, barring shortcomings with Nvidia's growth or valuation. Time will eventually tell how accurate this prediction is, but it appears that Nvidia's exciting story is far from over.
