What AI investors should be watching for at Nvidia's big GTC event

• Nvidia's annual GTC event kicks off on Monday with Jensen Huang's keynote.
• The event could serve as a catalyst for Nvidia stock and other AI-related stocks.
• Wall Street expects new product announcements, updates on the Rubin platform, and maybe even robots.

Buckle up, AI investors. A new potential market catalyst is in the pipeline: Nvidia's annual GTC event.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will kick off the event with a keynote address on Monday, and Wall Street thinks his comments could serve as a new input for the chip maker's stock as well as the wider AI trade.

The conference runs from Monday to Thursday, and has become a major event for the chipmaker over the years, with investors bracing for market-moving commentary from Huang as he delivers updates on AI hardware demand.

Nvidia stock is Bank of America's top AI pick, and analysts say it's trading at a historically cheap valuation. Wells Fargo is also bullish, with the bank's analysts saying the stock is a buy heading into the event.

Here's what AI investors should watch for next week.

Rubin ramp updates

Bank of America analysts are heading into the event looking for insights into the chipmaker's expectations for 2027 and 2028.

They don't expect the company to offer an official sales outlook, but said any color around the Rubin, Nvidia's next generation chip platform, could lift the "currently depressed stock," which they noted is trading at a historically low 17x forward price to earnings ratio.

The chipmaker will likely offer updates on its Groq integration efforts, as well.

Nancy Tengler, the CEO and CIO of Laffer Tengler Investments, said she doesn't expect GTC to move the stock, but pointed out that stronger-than-expected energy efficiency for the Vera Rubin platform could serve as a positive catalyst.

New products

Nvidia often unveils new products at GTC, and announcements tend to fuel investor excitement. In general, investors are eager for any products focused on power efficiency and optics for AI data centers. Wall Street analysts said they expect Nvidia to unveil co-designed and customized offerings focused on running AI inference computing.

New products could help ease investors' worries about Nvidia falling out of favor in the next leg of the AI trade when the computing focus shifts from training to the interference stage.

Analysts anticipate that Nvidia will unveil Spectrum6, a new generation of its Ethernet platform, as well as new optics chips.

Physical AI showcase

Nvidia had robots join Jensen Huang's last keynote, using the event as an opportunity to fuel investor excitement about the opportunity in robotics. Tech analysts have predicted that physical AI could be a multi-trillion-dollar industry in the coming decades.

Nvidia assuring investors that it is well positioned to continue its run as the dominant chip player as AI moves into the tangible world should be a bullish development.

GTC could impact other AI stocks

The event could serve as a catalyst for other companies in the AI space.

Wells Fargo flagged that Marvell could see a negative reaction if Nvidia doubles down on optics connectivity solutions.

Conversely, memory stocks and Intel could see positive stock moves following GTC.

Bank of America said that Nvidia could make a joint announcement with Intel, which would mark a deeper dive into CPUs for Nvidia.