Nvidia stock: Here's the next potential catalyst

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The normal AI wonders and promises that powered Nvidia stock (NVDA) to record highs may not do the trick in getting the stock to rise again.

It'll likely require more real-world use of AI applications, which would help quash Wall Street's concerns about the future pace of AI demand.

"I think it's probably still the use of more applications, which won't come from Nvidia — it'll come from their partners and their customers' customers. They're users of the Blackwell chips," EMJ Capital founder and Nvidia bull Eric Jackson told me on Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid podcast on the potential next Nvidia stock catalyst (video above; listen in below).

Jackson pointed to recent AI application advances from tech plays Palantir (PLTR) and Klarna as good examples of showing the Street what is likely coming in real-world AI use and how Nvidia stands at the center of it, given its leadership position for chips.

Added Jackson, "So I think it's got to be another story like those coming from some company using AI that is seeing just tremendous cost savings and so forth. I think it's got to come [from] that excitement and then the fact that other people are feeling the need to play catch up to those examples. And then, obviously, they're going to have to buy more."

Read more: How does Nvidia make money?

Nvidia's typical jaw-dropping moments at its annual GTC gathering on Tuesday made a thud in markets.

There were lots of details on powerful new AI chips such as Blackwell Ultra and Vera Rubin, which could help take civilization to a whole other level of productivity.

Co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang dropped a host of big numbers around artificial intelligence's potential. None were bigger than his prediction that Nvidia’s data center infrastructure revenue will hit $1 trillion by 2028.

The company even took some wraps off a future AI chip called Feynman set to drop in 2028.

By the end of the presentation, Huang had displayed Nvidia's full product roadmap through 2028 — impressive given how much innovation the company has done on AI chips in the past two years alone.

Nvidia's stock still fell 3.4% by the close of trading on Tuesday. Shares only rebounded slightly in premarket trading to $116 each on Wednesday.

Year to date, the once-hot stock is down by 14% as the Street questions Nvidia's pace of future growth.

"As expected, there were no major surprises from GTC given confirmation of second half Blackwell Ultra (GB300) transition, and the Vera Rubin platform launch which will feature HBM4 as well as CPO spec upgrade were all widely expected," HSBC analyst Ryan Mellor wrote. "More importantly, Vera Rubin NVL 144 (based on 144 GPU dies instead of exact number of GPUs) in the second half of 2026 suggests no GPU content growth given 72 GPUs per NVL rack remains the same as Blackwell NVL 72."