There is no doubt that Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock has been at the forefront of the AI craze, rewarding shareholders with incredible gains over the past few years. NVDA has seen its share price surge by over 1,000% since the first ChatGPT model burst onto the scene in November 2022 and sparked the raging AI wildfire.
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That meteoric rise has been built on relentless innovation. Nvidia’s dominance of the data center market and its unassailable CUDA software moat have propelled it into the position of the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, now worth more than $4 trillion.
And the company’s latest numbers certainly seem to demonstrate that Nvidia’s ambitions are not slowing down. The Q2 Fiscal 2026 earnings released last week showed record-breaking revenues of $46.74 billion (up 56% year-over-year), paired with a gross margin above 75%.
CEO Jensen Huang’s embrace of “Agentic AI,” coupled with hyperscaler investments and sovereign governments spending billions on AI infrastructure, reinforces the notion that Nvidia’s growth story has legs. Still, investors can’t help but wonder how much upside remains in the tank.
Representing the bull camp, Craig-Hallum’s 5-star analyst Richard Shannon – ranked among the top 1% of Wall Street pros – sees plenty of growth still on the horizon.
“NVDA’s results and guidance reinforce the strong-held belief that AI demand trends remain robust,” Shannon noted.
While Shannon acknowledges that Nvidia missed the data center figures many buyside investors had been hoping for, the analyst characterizes this as but a mere “blip” on the road. The analyst notes that the real issue is whether demand will continue growing for the foreseeable future.
Shannon posits that the “strongest claim” for this bullish vision is the growth of reasoning and agentic systems, which will require compute power perhaps 100- or 1,000-multitudes higher than prior generations. With NVDA’s technology advantages “unlikely to be approached any time soon,” the company should be just fine as long as capex spending continues apace.
“The risk of underinvesting in AI is higher than overinvesting,” asserts Shannon, who rates NVDA a Buy. His price target of $245 implies a 43% upside from current levels. (To watch Shannon’s track record, click here)
While most analysts on Wall Street seem to agree with this version, there are a few dissenting voices ready to part with this conventional wisdom.
Count Seaport’s Jay Goldberg among those scattered candles in the wind. The analyst argues that the Q2 print was in line with expectations, though he worries that things could be slowing down.
“We think this quarter’s results demonstrate that while Nvidia leads the market, it is seeing real constraints on its growth,” posits the analyst.
Goldberg points out that Q2 was the first full quarter to include Blackwell results, and the analyst is none too encouraged. For one, there was no upside surprise contained in these figures, though he also points to “a recurring theme of frustration with the installment of Blackwell systems” that has popped up in recent conversations with industry contacts.
The analyst also raises doubts about the “Agentic AI” and whether it is realistic in the near term, while also expressing skepticism that the massive $20 billion in “Sovereign AI” spending will actually come to fruition.
“We think the company will struggle to deliver upside to numbers this year,” concludes Goldberg, who assigns NVDA shares a Sell rating, along with a $100 price target, which implies ~41% downside. (To watch Goldberg’s track record, click here)
Wall Street leans overwhelmingly bullish, with 34 Buys, 3 Holds, and Goldberg’s lone Sell rating. This gives NVDA a Strong Buy consensus rating, and its average 12-month price target of $210.75 suggests upside of ~23%. (See NVDA stock forecast)
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.