Token King
A trillion dollars in expected annual revenue. Data centres in space. And one company that sits at the centre of the new token economy.
The S&P 500 closed higher on Monday after three straight weeks in the red. The index was boosted by oil prices pulling back slightly. After all, the 10-day correlation between the S&P 500 and WTI crude oil futures is down to -0.6, meaning when oil prices surge, stocks go the other way.
But the recovery in U.S. equities was tech-led. And much of that comes down to the main event this week: Nvidia’s ($NVDA) GTC conference, otherwise known as ‘Woodstock of AI.’ Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang now expects at least US$1T in revenue from its Blackwell and Vera Rubin AI chips through 2027.
That number is double the US$500B forecast from October. So no one in the room blinked when Huang lifted a championship-style belt labelled ‘InferenceX’ above his head, and proclaimed himself the ‘token king.’
Think of tokens as ‘AI’s currency’. They’re small pieces of text that models use as their unit of processing. And Nvidia is positioning itself to take a cut from every AI-generated token moving forward. Its wave of GTC announcements made that clear.
One of them was Nvidia’s new space computing platform that will power AI workloads in orbit. That news boosted shares in Planet Labs ($PL), working with Nvidia to build an AI engine for planetary intelligence. Back on earth, partnerships told a bigger story.
Uber ($UBER) is collaborating with Nvidia to deploy robotaxi-ready vehicles across multiple U.S. cities. Nvidia also plans to bring OpenAI to AWS, acting as the connective tissue that will help Amazon ($AMZN) to diversify from Microsoft ($MSFT) Azure exclusivity.
An interconnected ecosystem is forming around the US$4.5T firm. At the application layer, the stack is already taking shape:
Palantir ($PLTR) connects models to real enterprise data
Snowflake ($SNOW) lets companies run AI without moving that data
Salesforce ($CRM) embeds AI agents into workflows
Adobe ($ADBE) brings those agents into creative tools
CrowdStrike ($CRWD) secures it all at scale
Nvidia sits at the centre with every layer running on its silicon. Formally partnering with each layer makes it harder for any alternative chip to displace them, because the entire software ecosystem is co-engineered around Nvidia infrastructure. The switching costs just don’t make sense.
If AI really is the next industrial platform, Nvidia isn’t just supplying the tools. It’s collecting rent on every token.
This is not financial advice nor a recommendation to invest in the securities listed. The information presented is intended to be of a factual nature only. Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance. The author of this article and other employees of Stakeshop Pty Ltd may hold positions or have financial interests in the company (or companies) discussed above. As always, do your own research and consider seeking financial, legal and taxation advice before investing.
Samy is a markets analyst at Stake, with seven years of experience in the world of investing, working across roles in private banking, venture capital and financial media. She has a Master’s degree in Finance and Data Analytics from The University of Sydney Business School.
