Artificial Intelligence (AI) concept leader stock NVIDIA's share price has seen a surge since the beginning of October, with Monday's price nearly reaching a record high for the first time in nearly four months, reflecting investors' optimism about the strong demand for NVIDIA's latest mass-produced architecture chip - the Blackwell chip.

On Monday, October 14th, in the early US stock market, NVIDIA's share price, which was roughly flat on Friday, opened up by more than 1.2% and then accelerated upwards. It once rose to $139.6 in the early session, approaching the highest intraday record set on June 20th. The day's increase was nearly 3.6%, but later the increase narrowed to within 3%, closing up by more than 2.4%, at $238.07, setting a new closing high record for the first time since June 18th.

As of last Friday's closing, NVIDIA's share price had accumulated an 11% increase in the two weeks since the beginning of October, with an approximate 172.2% increase this year. On Monday, it further expanded the more than 10% increase in October, with the annual increase starting to approach 180%, and the cumulative increase over the past 12 months is close to 200%.

NVIDIA's market value surpassed Microsoft's last week to rank second. By Monday's closing, its market value was about $3.4 trillion, expanding its lead over Microsoft and maintaining its position as the second-highest market value company in the US stock market after Apple.

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As an AI chip giant, NVIDIA remains the darling of the AI boom in the US stock market in 2024. The specific surge within this month reflects NVIDIA's success in appeasing investors' concerns about the delayed shipment of Blackwell chips and long-term growth prospects.

Due to design defects, the most advanced AI chip in the Blackwell series will be delayed by three months or more, and the mass shipment of Blackwell chips may be delayed until the first quarter of next year. Since then, the production and demand trends of Blackwell chips have attracted more attention and have affected the stock market.

On October 2nd, after the US stock market closed, NVIDIA CEO Jen-Hsun Huang clearly stated that the chips of the Blackwell architecture have been "fully put into production" and "the demand for Blackwell (chips) is crazy (insane)." At that time, comments suggested that Huang's speech alleviated concerns about the production delay of Blackwell chips.

Some media believed on Monday that part of the recent strength in NVIDIA's share price was due to Huang's aforementioned statement. Moreover, a report released by Morgan Stanley after meeting with NVIDIA's management last week also brought good news. The report revealed that the Blackwell chips "products for the next 12 months have been sold out, indicating strong market demand and预示着 a continuous high growth trend in annual shipments," stating that "all signs indicate that the business remains strong and the outlook is very bright."

Last week, NVIDIA's management mentioned OpenAI's first model with inference capabilities, o1, in a closed-door meeting at an AI summit, stating that with the release of the OpenAI o1 model, a new AI narrative is unfolding, and the growth in inference computing demand brings new growth space for NVIDIA. Morgan Stanley's aforementioned report believes that inference computing will boost the long-term demand for AI chips, expects NVIDIA to have a strong performance in 2025, and considers 2026 as the early stage of a long-term investment cycle.

The above statements and evaluations have all reinforced investors' views that NVIDIA is still the preferred way to invest in AI, especially as major companies continue to commit to AI investment. Zehrid Osmani, portfolio manager at Martin Currie Investment Management, said: "People had questioned whether production delays could have an impact, so these updates are reassuring."John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, stated that these events have "reignited interest in the (AI) sector, with people getting very excited about reasoning-based AI use cases. Reasoning represents a new frontier for Nvidia, and given its computational intensity, it could be a massive new product category."

In addition to the optimism surrounding the prospects of Blackwell chips, TSMC, a key manufacturing partner for Nvidia's chips, has also recently demonstrated the market's strong demand for AI through its sales figures. Last Wednesday, TSMC reported its September revenue, which easily exceeded market expectations, with September sales of NT$251.87 billion, a year-over-year increase of 39.6%, and a total sales increase of 31.9% for the first nine months of this year. Analysts believe that "TSMC has always been at the forefront of AI development." HSBC expects that TSMC's third-quarter report, to be released this Thursday, will show that its performance continues to be at the high end of the company's guidance.

Furthermore, some media have pointed out that the recent rise in Nvidia's stock price began on October 2nd. On that day, OpenAI announced the completion of a new round of massive financing of $6.6 billion, with a valuation reaching $157 billion, and it is said that Nvidia also participated in the investment. A large portion of the financing obtained by OpenAI is expected to "flow back" to Nvidia, as OpenAI's energy demands continue to grow, requiring more AI chips to be configured.

The media mentioned that last week, some Wall Street analysts reiterated their buy ratings for Nvidia's stock. A report from KeyBanc estimated that the new Blackwell chip alone would bring in $7 billion in revenue for Nvidia in the fourth quarter of this year, and the demand for older chips is "still very strong." Wedbush analysts believe that AI startups may be on the verge of a new round of financing, which would also increase Nvidia's revenue.

Recently, the options market has also shown signs of investors' optimism about Nvidia's prospects. Last Thursday, Nvidia saw a wave of bullish option purchases, with option holders able to buy more than 30 million shares of Nvidia at prices ranging from $150 to $189 by next March. This purchase price range is 11.3%-40.2% higher than Nvidia's closing price last Friday.