Silicon Valley Enters "Nvidia(NVDA.US) Time"! Can the GTC Conference Lead the Semiconductor Sector to "Take Off" Again?

If history repeats itself, NVIDIA (NVDA.US) upcoming GTC 2026 conference could provide another catalyst for the stock.

Wall Street analysts led by Aaron Rex of Wells Fargo noted, “We are buyers of NVIDIA ahead of this event. While history certainly doesn’t repeat exactly, we want to emphasize that NVIDIA’s stock performance after GTC has been very strong in recent years (within three months after GTC, NVIDIA outperformed the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index by about 30%).”

Technology investors will undoubtedly focus on this conference, which will be held from March 16 to 19 in San Jose, California. According to company information, OpenAI, Google DeepMind (GOOGL.US), Meta (META.US), Microsoft (MSFT.US), and Tesla (TSLA.US) will participate in key sessions or main stages.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang will deliver a keynote speech on Monday, March 16, at 2 p.m. Eastern Time. Additionally, Huang will host a panel discussion on industry topics on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. ET.

GF Securities believes this event could be a catalyst not only for NVIDIA but also for the entire semiconductor sector. The company is expected to showcase its second-generation Co-Packaged Optical (CPO) switches. Analysts suggest it may incorporate TSMC’s (TSM) co-packaged optical technology, but shipments are not expected to expand until 2027, reaching around 80,000 units. Other potential announcements include updates to its Feynman series GPUs—specifically the Kyber NVL576 rack series.

Bank of America also remains highly optimistic about NVIDIA ahead of the conference, reaffirming a “Buy” rating and a $300 target price.

BofA analyst Vivek Arya stated, “While we do not expect an official sales outlook for 2027-28, any details regarding the Rubin series mass production (for 2027-28) could help boost the currently depressed stock price (forward P/E of 17x, at a historic low). Previously, strong production of the Blackwell series has contributed to $500 billion in cumulative sales.”

Wells Fargo expects NVIDIA to provide the latest updates on its product pipeline.

Rex said, “Over $500 billion pipeline expansion + extended timeline + more background information disclosed by NVIDIA, including the deployment of 9GW of Blackwell (compared to less than 4.5GW of Hopper). Since Blackwell shipments began at the end of 2024, we estimate that NVIDIA has confirmed approximately $240 billion to $250 billion in revenue within the $500 billion target for 2026. We believe an upward revision to over $600 billion would be positive. We are also watching whether NVIDIA will update its forecast that AI infrastructure spending will reach $3 trillion to $4 trillion by 2030.”

Stocks potentially affected by GTC developments include AMD (AMD.US), TSMC, Broadcom (AVGO.US), Intel (INTC.US), Marvell (MRVL.US), and various networking equipment companies.