Shares of Marvell Technology (MRVL +5.83%) charged sharply higher on Friday, jumping as much as 6.3%. As of 12:47 p.m. ET, the stock was still up 6%.
The catalyst that sent the semiconductor and infrastructure specialist higher was news of a notable acquisition by another artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
You want chips with that?
Rumors have swirled over the past week that Nvidia (NVDA +0.83%) was in discussions to acquire open-source AI model development platform Hugging Face. The question was put to rest late yesterday when Nvidia confirmed the tie-up.
Nvidia agreed to pay $12.9 billion for Hugging Face, a move some industry watchers are calling defensive. In a blog post to announce the acquisition, Nvidia pointed to Hugging Face's extensive reach among AI developers, noting that the platform has more than 18 million users, 3 million models, 500,000 data sets, and more than 1 million applications and is used by more than 200,000 companies "to discover, evaluate, customize, and deploy AI."
CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia was already the largest supplier of data and open AI models to Hugging Face, so that marks a natural evolution in the connection between the two companies. Huang also noted that more than 50% of Nvidia's business is "largely driven by open models," so this positions the company for future success.
NASDAQ: MRVL
Key Data Points
So, what does this have to do with Marvell?
Nvidia and Marvell are already partners. Earlier this year, Nvidia announced a $2 billion stake in the custom AI chipmaker. Moreover, the companies announced a strategic partnership to collaborate on silicon photonics and to make their respective technologies compatible. This, in turn, makes it easier for customers to build semi-custom AI infrastructure using Marvell's XPUs and Nvidia NVLink ecosystem.
Generally speaking, what's good for future AI adoption is a positive for both Nvidia and the industry overall, which is why the Hugging Face acquisition is driving Marvell stock higher today.
Marvell stock fetches a premium, selling for 33 times next year's expected earnings. However, the company's record revenue and its accelerating growth suggest it's worth a look.
