NVIDIA’s (NVDA) $100 Billion Bet For 2026

Summary:

Our AI Investor Podcast hosts, Eric Bleeker and Austin Smith, have been counting down 12 trends that AI investors will want to keep an eye on in 2026.

Recently, the two discussed the emerging Vera Rubin wave; a major industrial-scale upgrade in data center technology recently announced by Nvidia. At CES 2026, Nvdia announced that the superchip is already in initial production, with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stating that it is arriving at precisely the right moment “as AI computing demand for both training and inference is going through the roof.”

There are several companies which could benefit from what many on Wall Street see as yet another AI wave, with some like Modine Manufacturing having already seen notable gains as the implications of Vera Rubin become clearer. Lumentum is another company that could prove a big winner, with its stocks having already risen significantly since being recommended on the show.

“You see the opportunities if you understand what’s happening in these platforms before revenue shows,” Bleeker explains. “The bottom line is that Vera Rubin is industrial in scale. It can potentially connect millions of GPU dies together and represents an upgrade that companies in this race cannot afford to ignore.”

Transcript:

Austin: Let’s talk about another brewing trend. We’ve alluded to this one. This is the Vera Rubin wave. This was recently announced by Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) | NVDA Price Prediction at CES just a couple weeks ago. I actually have not seen very much coverage on this. Most people are still talking about Blackwell, probably because they’re still in the rollout and implementation cycle. But let’s talk about this upcoming Vera Rubin wave. I’m having flashbacks to the last 18 months to two years, when you were talking about the upcoming Blackwell wave, which we are now just starting to see play out. You have to put yourself back in the shoes of 18 months to two years ago to understand what a Vera Rubin wave could look like.

Eric Bleeker: Yeah, it’s amazing. It just never stops. That’s why Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is such a tenacious competitor, with as ambitious a pipeline of products as you can imagine. They revealed Vera Rubin at CES, and here’s what’s important: it’s already in initial production. Lumentum (NASDAQ: LITE) just announced earnings. We recommended the stock at $84 per share in November 2024. It’s now trading closer to $500 per share, largely because it’s a massive winner in the shift to Vera Rubin. They also announced that they had received initial orders for platforms going into Vera Rubin.

Some key features of Vera Rubin: number one, it’s industrial in scale. Racks are now 800 volts, which is incredible power density. This will help companies that specialize in power management, such as ABB. Second, increased density means more thermal management and heat dissipation is required. We talked about Modine Manufacturing as an opportunity, and since then the stock is up 66%. You see the opportunities if you understand what’s happening in these platforms before revenue shows. Third, Vera Rubin introduces huge changes in how data centers will be networked in the future. It’s a big callout for optical stocks, which is another trend we’re tracking.

The bottom line is that Vera Rubin is industrial in scale. It can potentially connect millions of GPU dies together and represents an upgrade that companies in this race cannot afford to ignore. The winners of Vera Rubin will likely become the biggest stock winners in the years to come.

Austin: This isn’t necessarily a case where the biggest winners in the Blackwell cycle will be the biggest winners here. Vera Rubin requires much more thermal management, power delivery, and regulation, so the opportunity lies in a different set of companies than the Blackwell cycle.

Eric Bleeker: Exactly. One of the things that makes this cycle exciting is that it’s dynamic. It’s not a set-and-forget situation, which means new opportunities are always emerging. When something like Vera Rubin happens, we study it the same way people used to study what’s inside a new iPhone.