Nvidia's Memphis Buildout Accelerates as Huawei Prepares Its Ascend Challenge

Nvidia closed Friday at EUR 197.76, up 0.2%, as Musk outlined doubling Colossus 2's Nvidia chips and Nscale added a $1 billion Nvidia commitment.

Nvidia shares finished Friday's session at EUR 197.76, a move of 0.2% on the day, leaving the stock up 23% since the start of the year and roughly 2.3% below its 52-week high.

Musk Doubles Down on Colossus 2

The day's most concrete catalyst came from Elon Musk, who outlined an aggressive expansion of the Colossus 2 data center operated by the SpaceXAI unit. The Memphis facility currently runs 110,000 of Nvidia's GB200 processors alongside 440,000 GB300 chips. Under Musk's plan, another 220,000 GB300 units will be brought online next week, with a further 220,000 following in November — effectively doubling the site's Nvidia silicon by year-end.

That schedule gave investors a tangible demand signal at a time when the broader market was focused on macro currents. Reuters reported that the stock drifted slightly firmer on Friday, with general AI optimism and softening oil prices providing the backdrop; no company-specific trigger was identified for the session's modest gain.

The picture was less supportive earlier in the week. On Wednesday, Nvidia shares gave ground as U.S. equities retreated amid rising government bond yields and climbing crude prices — again a market-wide pullback rather than anything tied to the company itself.

Huawei's Ascend Silicon Looms Over the AI Race

Competitive pressure is building from China. Reuters Breakingviews reported Thursday on Huawei's latest push into artificial intelligence chips: the Ascend 960DT and Ascend 960PR, unveiled in September and slated for market launch next year. Observers quoted in the report see the processors as the clearest sign yet that Huawei intends to take on Nvidia in this arena.

Nscale Round Adds a $1 Billion Nvidia Backstop

Beyond the data center headlines, Nvidia's fingerprints were visible across several infrastructure developments. Nscale closed a pre-IPO funding round totaling $3.36 billion on Friday, anchored by a preliminary commitment from Nvidia Corp. of $1 billion. Those funds are scheduled to be made available in mid-November 2026.

A day earlier, Mitsubishi Electric presented a technical blueprint for AI factories built around system architecture powered by Nvidia. Coverage of the design flagged grid connection as both a potential bottleneck for further infrastructure rollouts and an essential precondition for bringing such facilities online.

Quantum Tooling Cuts Development Timelines

Nvidia also extended its open-source CUDA-Q platform roughly two weeks ago with a new layer, CUDA-Q Logical, which serves as an orchestration tier for designing and testing fault-tolerant quantum computing applications. According to the company, Fermilab used the software to compress system architecture development from five months down to three weeks.