NVIDIA's next move after the A100/H100 run

It's always a bit of a laugh watching the market try to price in the next gen of AI chips before the current gen has even fully satiated demand. NVIDIA has been on an absolute tear, and frankly, who's surprised? The A100 and H100 are the picks and shovels of this gold rush. The question now becomes, what's their next trick, and how much of it is already baked into the valuation?

I'd put the odds at about 60% that we see NVIDIA make a significant, public acquisition of an AI software/services company by Q4 2024. Not just a minor tech acqui-hire, but something that clearly signals a push beyond just hardware. They know their moat, while deep, isn't impenetrable forever. It's less about them fearing direct chip competition (though that's coming), and more about them wanting to control more of the stack, turning the hardware into an even stickier platform. Keep an eye on firms in niche AI model development or enterprise AI solutions that might offer a strategic fit rather than just raw revenue. The market's probably pricing in continued hardware dominance, but the pivot play could be the real long-term driver.