Nvidia Secures H20 Chip Sales to China and Pours $3.2 Billion Into Corning as Market Cap Charges Toward $6 Trillion

US trade policy shift lets Nvidia sell H200 AI processors to Alibaba, Tencent, ByteDance, reigniting a key revenue source. Stock hits record high above $5.5T, analysts raise targets.

A sudden shift in US trade policy has handed Nvidia a long-sought prize: permission to sell its H200 artificial-intelligence processors to Chinese technology giants. Washington’s green light opens a market that, before sanctions were imposed, accounted for roughly a quarter of the chipmaker’s total revenue. Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance are among roughly a dozen major Chinese firms cleared to order up to 75,000 units each, with Lenovo and Foxconn handling distribution on the ground. For Nvidia, the move reignites a vital revenue stream just as Beijing’s own regulators continue to review the transactions.

The diplomatic choreography that made the deal possible was unmistakable. Chief executive Jensen Huang joined President Donald Trump’s business delegation in Beijing, where talks with President Xi Jinping touched on export restrictions for cutting-edge chips. Market watchers interpreted the summit as a signal that further loosening of controls could follow, potentially unlocking the world’s largest AI chip market for Nvidia’s entire portfolio.

Investors responded with a buying frenzy that pushed the stock to a fresh all-time high of $236.44 on Thursday, inching the company’s market capitalisation past $5.5 trillion. The $6 trillion mark now looms large, having seemed a distant prospect only weeks ago. The rally accelerated after Cantor Fitzgerald lifted its price target to $350, citing “enormous demand” and noting that Nvidia’s compute capacity is effectively sold out for the next two years. Wells Fargo followed with a target of $315, while Bank of America set its sights on $320, basing its optimism on a projected $1.7 trillion total addressable market for AI data-centre systems by 2030.

Behind the headlines, Nvidia is shoring up its physical infrastructure to meet that demand. The company has committed up to $3.2 billion to glassmaker Corning, whose optical components are essential for the next generation of AI data centres. In a parallel move, Nvidia struck a broad cooperation deal with Intel, enlisting the US chip giant to help manufacture high-performance processors and AI-powered consumer PCs. The strategy reduces Nvidia’s reliance on Taiwan’s TSMC and accelerates the ramp-up of the Blackwell and Rubin architectures, both of which have seen explosive demand.

The enthusiasm is evident in the options market, where more than three million call contracts changed hands on Wednesday alone. Yet the coming earnings report on May 20 will test whether the hype is justified. UBS forecasts a quarterly revenue leap to over $80 billion, and the company is expected to raise its outlook as the Blackwell platform begins generating sales in the second half of the year. History, however, offers a note of caution: Nvidia’s stock has almost always dipped on the day of its earnings release, even when the numbers beat expectations. The next few weeks will show whether the confluence of a reopened China market, a beefed-up supply chain and a record valuation can finally break that pattern.