Nvidia (NVDA 1.65%) continues to captivate investors with its incredible growth story. Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a booming industry, but it may just be in its early stages. Nvidia is a key player in AI, and it has a lot to gain as the trend grows.
It doesn't report earnings until Aug. 27, but Nvidia stock is climbing, riding the coattails of AI stocks that have been booming over the past few weeks. The market has rebounded and investors feel more confident in the economy, and several AI stocks impressed the market with their earnings last week. Microsoft joined Nvidia in the $4 trillion market cap club, and Meta Platforms, Amazon, and Apple all crushed expectations for second-quarter results.
It's an exciting setup for what Nvidia might report in just a few weeks, and it bodes well for the future of AI and Nvidia's business. Can investing $10,000 in Nvidia stock today make you a millionaire?
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The king of the AI chip
Nvidia stock surged over the past few years as the dominant leader in chips that power AI. It has as much as 95% of the market, and it has relationships with most of the AI developers, like the tech stocks mentioned above, translating into long-term contracts, reliable revenue growth, and high barriers to entry for competitors. Although there are other companies that produce AI chips, Nvidia constantly upgrades its platform and offers even more powerful technology, ensuring ongoing partnerships with its clients and a widening moat.
What's important to note about the success of its high-profile tech clients is that if they're doing well, the likelihood is that Nvidia is also going to beat expectations. Management is forecasting revenue to increase 50% over last year in the 2026 fiscal second quarter, which will be reported on Aug. 27.
The data center opportunity
Data centers have been driving sales recently, and this is a high-opportunity space. AI companies need vast amounts of power to run the inference and reasoning that make their large language models (LLM) perform effectively, and they need Nvidia's GPUs to process all of the raw data in massive data centers. Data center revenue increased 73% year over year in the 2026 fiscal first quarter (ended April 27), while total sales were up 69%.
Management said that the Blackwell architecture, a more powerful technology that replaced its previous Hopper technology, was it fastest-ever ramp-up, as it managed a sharp jump in demand for inference. There's been tremendous development in AI factories, which require greater power, with 100 Nvidia-powered new factories in the first quarter, double from last year, and the average number of chips in each one also doubled from last year. It has projects coming up that need "tens of gigawatts" of Nvidia products on the horizon.
According to McKinsey, by 2030, companies are going to be spending nearly $7 trillion on data centers. Nvidia is positioned to benefit from that spending over the next five years.
It all may not be enough
Nvidia has an incredible long-term opportunity, and it's still demonstrating the kind of growth young growth companies are trying to emulate. However, it may not be that stock that can turn $10,000 into $1 million. Turning $10,000 into $1 million implies 10,000% growth.
Based on current performance, you might think Nvidia can do that, because it's still reporting the kind of growth a young tech stock might demonstrate. However, it's already decelerating, and it's expected to slow down further. It's just simply too hard to increase percentage-wise from a base that's as big as Nvidia's is today. Even if in dollars it's growing faster than smaller companies, its stock won't be able to gain unless the percentage increases can match.
It's very likely that Nvidia will cross the $5 trillion market cap threshold very soon, but it's unlikely that it can increase 10,000%, even in the distant future.
I think Nvidia could be an excellent component of a millionaire-maker portfolio, but I wouldn't expect a $10,000 investment in Nvidia stock to make you a millionaire on its own.
