Marvell Technology shares jumped almost 30% on Tuesday after Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang described the semiconductor company as the "next trillion-dollar company," fueling a rally in a stock that has become closely tied to the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
The remarks took place during an onstage discussion between Huang and Marvell CEO Matt Murphy at Computex in Taipei, where Huang praised the company's networking and connectivity technologies, according to CNBC.
Huang said connectivity has become a critical component of modern AI data centers, where computing workloads are distributed across thousands of processors that must continuously exchange massive amounts of data. The Nvidia chief said Marvell's products help make those systems possible.
"When you take a computing problem, and you disaggregate it into a lot of parts, and you distribute it across the entire data center, what's necessary is connectivity," Huang said during the event.
Marvell designs semiconductor and networking products used in cloud computing, AI systems, enterprise networking, 5G telecommunications networks and automotive applications. The company has emerged as a key beneficiary of the industry's race to build the infrastructure required to support increasingly powerful AI models.
The stock rally added billions of dollars to Marvell's market value as investors continue to pour money into companies linked to AI-related spending.
The surge came less than a week after Marvell reported stronger-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results. The company posted revenue of $2.4 billion and forecast continued growth driven by demand from its data center business, according to Reuters. Marvell has increasingly relied on AI-related revenue as cloud providers expand their computing capacity to support generative AI applications.
The company occupies an important position in the semiconductor supply chain because its networking products help move data between processors, memory systems and storage devices inside large-scale data centers. As AI models become larger and require more computing power, the speed at which information moves across those systems has become increasingly important.
Nvidia has also deepened its relationship with Marvell. The graphics chip giant recently committed a $2 billion investment in the company as part of broader efforts to expand AI infrastructure capabilities.
Both companies have also been involved in the development of photonics technology, which uses light rather than electrical signals to transmit data. The technology is viewed as a way to improve efficiency and reduce bottlenecks as AI workloads continue to grow, according to MarketWatch.
Demand for advanced semiconductors has surged since the launch of generative AI tools sparked a global race among technology companies to build larger and more powerful computing systems. The competition has unfolded against a backdrop of ongoing geopolitical tensions over semiconductor manufacturing and access to advanced chips, particularly between the United States and China.
Those developments have helped drive heavy investment across the semiconductor industry, benefiting not only chipmakers such as Nvidia but also companies that provide the networking, connectivity and infrastructure technologies required to operate AI data centers.
