Overview
- Washington imposed a 25% tariff on select advanced semiconductors, naming Nvidia’s H200 and AMD’s MI325X, with exemptions for startups, domestic data centers and certain public‑sector needs.
- Wolfe Research said the tariff largely formalizes pre‑agreed payments for permitted shipments and should have limited incremental impact, though China’s acceptance of such exports remains uncertain.
- RBC initiated Nvidia at Outperform, citing ecosystem dominance and a backlog above $500 billion, while noting sustained hyperscaler demand and rising inference workloads.
- Views on AMD are mixed, with Citi keeping a Neutral rating on muted margin leverage even as other firms highlight credibility from the OpenAI deal and raise targets tied to MI300‑series ramps.
- Investor optimism around Intel’s turnaround has lifted the stock to its highest level since early 2022 ahead of earnings, as data‑center CPU demand strengthens despite lingering questions on foundry yields and margins; broader AI buildouts face memory and power constraints even as TSMC projects 50%+ annual AI chip revenue growth through 2029.