Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) fell more than 5% on Tuesday, a day after closing at a record high.
The chipmaker’s shares fell less than 1% in premarket trading but were down about 5% by midday. The decline came after a report that the US could restrict sales of advanced artificial intelligence chips from US-based chipmakers to certain countries. Biden administration officials have discussed in recent weeks placing a cap on export licenses for advanced AI chips, including those from Nvidia and rival AMD (AMD), to Middle Eastern countries, citing concerns about national security, Bloomberg reported.
Earlier this year, US officials began delaying the issuance of licenses to Nvidia, AMD and other US chipmakers to ship large-scale AI accelerators to the Middle East, Bloomberg reported.
Meanwhile, Dell (DELL) plans to ship computer servers with Nvidia’s Blackwell AI chips to select customers starting next month, with general availability planned for early next year, Arthur Lewis, president of Dell’s infrastructure unit, told Bloomberg.
Dell’s rollout shows that production of Nvidia’s highly anticipated Blackwell chips is on track after reports of delays earlier this year.
Nvidia stock has seen some turbulence in recent months. In August, the chipmaker’s shares fell about 13% in pre-market trading after a report that Blackwell chips had been delayed due to design flaws.
Still, Nvidia’s stock is up about 173% so far this year and remains the second most valuable publicly traded company after Apple (AAPL). The company’s shares rose 2.4% to close at a record $138.07 on Monday, beating the previous high of $135.58 on June 18 – a week after the company initiated a 10-for-1 stock split.
During Nvidia’s second-quarter earnings call in August, CEO Jensen Huang said the company had shipped samples of Blackwell chips to customers during that period and will ramp up Blackwell production in the fourth quarter through fiscal 2026.
To “improve manufacturing efficiency,” Nvidia has made a change to Blackwell’s GPU mask, the chipmaker said. “However, no functional changes were required,” Huang said on a call with analysts.
Earlier this month, Nvidia shares rose after CEO Jensen Huang said demand for Blackwell is “insane.”
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