Next week’s CES 2025 in Las Vegas promises to deliver updates across the consumer technology spectrum, with NVIDIA Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, ETR:NVD), Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NASDAQ:AMD, ETR:AMD), and Intel Corp (NASDAQ:INTC, ETR:INL) expected to reveal key developments.
For Nvidia watchers, the spotlight will be on gaming, AI, and robotics. Nvidia's announcements, in particular, could set the tone for broader trends in consumer technology, leaving industry watchers eager to gauge the ripple effects across the sector.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will take center stage on Monday in a keynote address, and the company’s top management will lead discussions at CES.
Wedbush suggests the company’s unveiling of its 50xx series GPUs will likely take center stage, signaling a potential refresh cycle for gaming PCs.
“With GPUs (and all of Nvidia's other businesses having been eclipsed by data center AI), we see the ramifications as potentially more significant for other participants in the gaming hardware space if Nvidia's new parts catalyze a gaming PC refresh cycle,” analysts wrote in a note Friday.
In the realm of client computing, speculation has grown around Nvidia's development of an ARM-based CPU/APU in collaboration with Mediatek. However, Wedbush tempers expectations, stating, “The client compute market isn't large enough to have a significant impact on Nvidia's revenue trajectory.”
Nvidia's Jetson Thor robotics program and Drive product suite for autonomous vehicles may also feature prominently. While these technologies hold long-term revenue potential, Wedbush pointed out that “it will take significant time for both areas to develop.”
AI remains a critical focus for Nvidia. Key questions include the sales trajectory of its Blackwell architecture and the timeline for widespread adoption of consumer-facing AI applications. “Useful AI functionality would not only benefit NVDA but could drive upgrade cycles across hardware with ramifications for our entire universe,” Wedbush noted.
Elsewhere, AMD is set to unveil updates to its client CPUs and GPUs, including Strix Halo APUs and Ryzen 9 processors, as part of its push to expand market share in client computing—a trend Wedbush expects to accelerate in 2025. In gaming, AMD will introduce RDNA 4-based Radeon GPUs and FSR 4 software, which could bring incremental revenue, though NVIDIA is expected to maintain dominance. Limited details are anticipated for AMD’s data center roadmap, as Wall Street focuses on its progress in data center AI.
Meanwhile, Intel’s CES presence is likely muted, with emphasis on its manufacturing transition and 18A process.
'Reassuring' updates
Nvidia's shares were up 5% ahead of the start of CES on Monday.
Bank of America analysts are looking for encouraging news from the AI giant.
"We expect CES to feature reassuring updates on Blackwell shipments,next-gen variants (GB300, optimized for newer versions of AI inference), and a potential timeline acceleration for Rubin, which could help NVDA regain control of the overstated narrative around custom chips from cloud vendors overtaking or reducing the need to buy NVDA's merchant silicon."
--Updates with BofA comments--