Why one analyst and Nvidia skeptic says the chipmaker might not grow at all next year

• Nvidia could hit a major growth roadblock next year, according to analyst Gil Luria.
• He said the chipmaker may not grow at all in 2026 if demand for GPUs wanes.
• In his bear case, he sees Nvidia stock dropping as much as 48% from current levels.

After back-to-back years of spectacular growth, it’s possible that Nvidia may not be able to grow at all in 2026, according to an analyst.

Gil Luria, the head of technology research at DA Davidson has been skeptical of the stock’s massive rally, and this week, he said it’s possible that the chipmaker’s best days could be behind it.

That’s because, despite the major hype for Nvidia’s GPUs, there are growing risks that demand will start to level off for Nvidia’s AI chips — a development that would hammer the company’s stock.

Luria says he has a mixed outlook on Nvidia stock overall and maintained his “neutral” rating and $135 price target in a recent note.

But in his bear case, he sees revenue and earnings declining in 2026 as hyperscalers, which make up Nvidia’s largest customers, pull back on AI spending, while Nvidia struggles to sell chips to new customers. In that scenario, the stock could plunge as low as $60 a share, Luria said, which implies a 48% decline in the stock.

“The bear case is this is peak demand. That there won’t be a clean handoff from their top customers, Microsoft and Amazon, that have stabilized, to another set of customers,” Luria said, speaking to CNBC on Monday.

There are already some challenges that stand in the way of Nvidia growing its chip sales, Luria said.

For one, demand for Nvidia’s chips needs to hold up in China, despite the nation’s slowing economy and restrictions on high tech imports from the US.

Meanwhile, Nvidia’s smaller customers, like CoreWeave, need to raise capital in order to support their chip purchases.

Finally, the use cases of AI need to be more significant in order to justify current levels of investment in Nvidia, Luria said.

“That’s too much risk to next year’s estimates for us to be confident they can continue to grow at the rates analysts are expecting them to grow,” he added.

Luria’s outlook comes during a big week for Nvidia, with the Jensen Huang-led firm kicking off its annual AI conference in San Jose on Tuesday. So far, the firm has given key updates on new chips in the pipeline, like its Vera Rubin chip, which has improved performance and memory compared to its older chip models.

Nvidia stock, though, is still down 16% year-to-date, with shares seeing volatile moves over the last month. To Luria, it’s a sign that investors are also growing skeptical of Nvidia’s growth trajectory.

“So even though their products are staying ahead of the competition, it’s not enough to impress investors, at least not until they can show that this translates to continued growth at these rates. Which, again, is going to be very hard to do given how fast this company has grown the last couple of years,” Luria said.

Luria’s current price target, which implies 16% upside for Nvidia shares, is a compromise between his bull and bear case. While he’s been a big skeptic of Nvidia’s rapid growth in recent years, his bull case involves Nvidia meeting earnings expectations for next year, in which case, the stock could climb 38% higher to trade at $160 a share, he said.