Nvidia’s Pre-Earnings Power Play: $3.6 Billion Cloud Gambit Meets a $1.5 Billion Bearish Counter

Ahead of Q1 earnings, Nvidia fortifies supply chain with CoreWeave and Corning deals, while a former OpenAI researcher places a $1.5 billion bearish bet.

Nvidia is leaving nothing to chance ahead of its most closely watched earnings release this year. While the stock slipped 1.3% on Monday, the chip giant has been quietly fortifying its supply chain with billion-dollar bets — even as a prominent short seller places a massive wager against it. The result is a high-stakes collision of bullish infrastructure spending and bearish skepticism that will come to a head on Wednesday after the bell.

The most striking move is Nvidia’s near-doubling of its stake in cloud provider CoreWeave. Regulatory filings reveal the company now holds 47.2 million shares, representing roughly 11% of CoreWeave’s outstanding equity. Valued at approximately $3.6 billion, the investment deepens a symbiotic relationship: CoreWeave builds its data centers almost exclusively with Nvidia hardware, while serving as a critical distribution channel for the company’s coveted graphics processors. The arrangement locks in demand for future chip generations such as the upcoming Vera Rubin architecture.

Nvidia is also shoring up the physical side of AI infrastructure. A new SEC filing shows a stake of 7.8 million shares in materials specialist Coherent, alongside a technology partnership with Corning. The glass manufacturer plans to tenfold its US production capacity for optical connections, accelerating the construction of new AI factories. These moves underscore a strategy of vertical integration that goes far beyond chip design.

Wall Street, meanwhile, is piling on the optimism. Morgan Stanley maintained its “Overweight” rating and lifted its price target to $285, projecting $884 billion in data center revenue over the next two calendar years — well above the $785 billion market consensus. KeyBanc analyst John Vinh went further, raising his target to $300 and forecasting an extra $5 billion to $7 billion in revenue from higher Blackwell shipments next quarter. TD Cowen and UBS both raised their targets to $275, with UBS expecting Nvidia to beat its own revenue guidance by about $3 billion.

Yet a contrarian bet of exceptional size has emerged. Situational Awareness LP, a hedge fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, disclosed new put options on Nvidia worth more than $1.5 billion in its latest 13F filing. The fund also holds bearish positions on the VanEck Semiconductor ETF valued at over $2 billion. This stands in stark contrast to the broader trend among institutional investors, who in the first quarter overwhelmingly added to or built new Nvidia positions rather than reducing them.

The earnings themselves carry a high bar. Analysts expect first-quarter revenue in the range of $78 billion to $79 billion, with earnings per share seen between $1.76 and $1.78 — up sharply from $0.81 a year ago. The management guided for roughly $78 billion in revenue. In the previous fiscal year, Nvidia’s total revenue surged 65% to $215.94 billion, with net profit reaching $120.07 billion. The last quarter alone brought $68.13 billion in sales, of which $62.31 billion came from the data center segment.

The China wildcard adds another layer. CEO Jensen Huang expressed cautious optimism following a visit by a US delegation to Beijing, suggesting Chinese authorities may eventually allow imports of US AI chips again. But he confirmed no concrete talks took place regarding approval of the H200 chip. Nvidia holds an export license from the US government but is awaiting the green light from Beijing. Before tighter trade restrictions, China generated roughly 13% of Nvidia’s total revenue — and KeyBanc estimates that H200 approvals could unlock $13 billion to $14 billion in additional sales, though the company likely won’t include that in its formal forecast.

Options markets are pricing in a post-earnings swing of nearly 7.5%, well above recent reactions. With a stock that has already gained 18.39% year-to-date and trades 15% above its 50-day moving average, the stakes are unusually high. Investors will focus less on a simple earnings beat and more on the outlook for Blackwell, Rubin, and China. A guidance figure near $78 billion without an H200 contribution would play very differently than a cautious signal on capacity or demand. For Nvidia, the numbers are only half the story — the real test is whether its aggressive infrastructure bets can sustain the narrative.