Investing.com -- Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) continues to see Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) stock as a top pick for 2025, reiterating an Overweight rating with a price target of $166.
While there are some near-term concerns over NVDA, such as a slowdown in Hopper builds and the staggered readiness of Blackwell product variants, Morgan Stanley’s team views these issues as transitional.
By the second half of 2025, the strength of Blackwell will be “the only topic,” analysts led by Joseph Moore said in a note.
On competition, Morgan Stanley addresses fears about ASIC encroachment, particularly from Marvell (NASDAQ:MRVL) and Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO). Yet, the bank believes the biggest ASIC users will witness purchasing shift back toward GPUs.
“While our forecasts for both AVGO/MRVL ASIC revenue are largely conservative, as are our forecasts for GPU, we believe that GPU will meaningfully outperform ASIC this year,” analysts said.
The report also emphasizes Nvidia’s extensive R&D investments, which recently surpassed $12 billion annually, as critical to sustaining its leadership in AI hardware and system-level innovations.
Market watchers are also concerned about scaling Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) clusters, with technologists pushing for larger sizes while financial backers question the return on investment (ROI).
While consolidation in this space by 2026 is possible, Nvidia's innovations, like Mellanox (NASDAQ:MLNX) and NV-Link, enhance efficiency and address these challenges, according to analysts.
The company’s growth drivers—such as inference, sovereign AI training, and enterprise applications—comprise 70% of its data center revenue. “Even with some consolidation in the arms race, we should still see enduring growth potential,” analysts said.
Looking ahead, the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2025 is expected to be a positive event for Nvidia, with the company’s CEO Jensen Huang set to present a keynote for the first time in several years.
"The messaging should be the same – Blackwell demand is exceptional, but supply constrained," analysts remarked.
“But by mid year we remain comfortable that the focus will remain on Blackwell which will be the driving force behind revenue in 2h, potentially unlocking more significant upside.”