Nvidia shares are poised to extend gains for a 10th consecutive session, their longest streak of advances since a record-setting dash in December 2016, as the world’s most valuable chip maker updates its artificial intelligence processor.

The Santa Clara, California-based company has climbed about 20% during the course of this latest rally, adding about US$200-billion in market value. That’s as rivals are scrambling to come up with alternatives to challenge its AI dominance.

The stock has rallied more than 230% this year through to Monday’s close, making it the best performing component on both the Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 indexes as the AI-driven frenzy fuelled rallies this year. The latest surge comes as technology stocks rebound amid hopes that US interest rates have peaked.

Nvidia said its updated chip, called the H200, will get the ability to use high-bandwidth memory, or HBM3e, allowing it to better cope with the large data sets needed for developing and implementing AI.

“Nvidia has not refreshed prior data centre GPUs in the past,” Wolfe Research analyst Chris Caso wrote in a note. “So, this represents further evidence of Nvidia accelerating their product cadence in response to AI market growth and performance requirements, which further expands their competitive moat.”

The current version of the Nvidia processor, known as an AI accelerator, is already in high demand.

“The company’s accelerated product launch pace with H200 in mid-2024 is likely to help defend its turf,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kunjan Sobhani said. “The new AI processor comes with high-bandwidth memory and could be the top-performing GPU on market, raising the bar for competition.”

Read: Nvidia to make CPUs in major challenge to Intel

Nvidia, which had been under pressure last month as new US rules banned the sale of its cutting-edge chips to China, is scheduled to report earnings on 21 November. — Subrat Patnaik, (c) 2023 Bloomberg LP