SAN FRANCISCO, May 8, 2026, 08:04 PDT
Nvidia climbed 1.9% to $215.46 early Friday, building on gains after new AI-infrastructure agreements with Corning and IREN. The chipmaker kicked off the session at $213.24 and reached as high as $217.75. According to Investing, Thursday’s advance was tied to the Corning deal and renewed optimism for chip stocks generally.
This shift is drawing attention because investors now see Nvidia as something beyond just a GPU supplier—the chips driving the parallel computations at the core of AI. Corning steps in on the fiber and photonics side, handling the optical connections that shuffle data between thousands of chips in sprawling data centers. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called AI the “largest infrastructure buildout of our time.” Corning’s Wendell Weeks described it as “a manufacturing story.” Corning
Another agreement extended the trend to cloud computing. Nvidia plans to invest as much as $2.1 billion in IREN, tied to a larger initiative for building up to 5 gigawatts of AI infrastructure. As part of the deal, IREN granted Nvidia a five-year option for up to 30 million shares at $70 apiece.
This deal with Corning goes beyond a straightforward supply arrangement. According to Huang, Nvidia put down a “multi-billion-dollar prepayment” aimed at backing Corning’s factory expansion—distinct from the company’s previously announced equity stake, which has the potential to reach $3.2 billion, Reuters noted. Reuters
IREN announced it’s landed a five-year, $3.4 billion deal with Nvidia to supply AI cloud services for the company’s internal AI and research operations at its Childress, Texas site. Co-CEO Daniel Roberts called the agreement evidence that IREN’s offerings go beyond bare metal—meaning raw server rentals—and extend to “fully managed cloud solutions.” IREN
Corning lifted its long-term growth outlook, now targeting an annualized sales run rate of $20 billion by the close of 2026. The company also projected a 19% compound annual growth rate spanning late 2026 through 2030. CFO Ed Schlesinger cited long-term agreements with customers and what he called “risk-sharing arrangements” as key pieces of the strategy. Corning
Buyers stepped in as the market held its ground. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq notched fresh records Friday, with Nvidia and big tech names leading the way after U.S. jobs numbers took some pressure off slowdown fears. CFRA Research’s Sam Stovall called it a “solid labor market” reading. Reuters
The landscape keeps moving. AMD shares touched all-time highs this week on the back of upbeat guidance linked to AI infrastructure demand. Analysts still peg AMD as the nearest rival to Nvidia in AI chips, even as Nvidia holds on to its lead in premium accelerators. “Success invites competition,” said JonesTrading’s Michael O’Rourke. Reuters
Nvidia will release its next earnings report on May 20 at 2 p.m. Pacific. The chipmaker’s fiscal first-quarter revenue outlook stands at $78 billion, give or take 2%. Nvidia’s forecast notably factors in zero China data-center compute sales—a detail investors eyeing export restrictions won’t miss.
Valuation muddies the picture. On Thursday, a Simply Wall St community post pegged Nvidia’s fair value at $167 per share. The piece positioned the stock somewhere between its base and bull case scenarios, highlighting risks like China export curbs, custom silicon from major cloud players, and competition from AMD.
An Insider Monkey piece syndicated by Yahoo Finance weighed in on the bearish chatter: hyperscaler budgets might flatten out, whether AI bets will deliver is still up for debate, and cloud heavyweights are rolling out their own chips. The article flagged export restrictions, valuation, and the specter of tariffs among other red flags.
This isn’t just a theoretical concern. On Friday, Reuters reported that a company tied to Thailand’s national AI initiative was under suspicion for helping funnel servers loaded with advanced Nvidia chips into China. Nvidia, for its part, said it expects its partners to stick to export restrictions. Elsewhere, IREN’s most recent update revealed a quarterly net loss and cited ongoing risks tied to execution, financing, power costs, and hardware supplies—even as the company locked in deals with Nvidia.
