Is Nvidia Buying HP Or Dell? AI Chipmaker Quashes Rumors After Report Sends PC Stocks Swinging

• SemiAccurate reported on Monday that Nvidia has been in talks to acquire a PC and server company, with naming potential targets.
• Nvidia has denied the report, according to a spokesperson cited by Investing.com.
• Shares of HP and Dell jumped on the report before giving up some of those gains.

HP Inc. and Dell Technologies stocks rallied on Monday, then pared some of those gains in the after-market session after Nvidia denied reports it was in talks to acquire a PC manufacturer.

A report from technology news site SemiAccurate claimed that Nvidia had been in talks for over a year to buy a large company focused on PCs and servers. Although the report did not mention a source or the target company, investors appeared to buy on the news.

HP gained 5.3%, the most in over four months; Dell rallied 6.7% to a record high. Even the U.S.-listed shares of Chinese PC maker Lenovo Group rose 1%.
 

HPQ and DELL subsequently shed about 1.7% in extended trading; Investing.com quoted a Nvidia spokesperson as saying: “The media report is false; NVIDIA is not engaged in discussions to acquire any PC maker.”

Analyst Tags It Speculation

Evercore ISI dismissed the report as speculation but said such a deal — a semiconductor company purchasing an original equipment manufacturer — could make sense. 

“A deal like this would fundamentally change the computing landscape and could allow an xPU company to vertically integrate AI compute closer to the end-device,” analyst Amit Daryanani reportedly said in his investor note, according to a report in Barron’s. In other words, Nvidia could be eyeing a PC maker to more easily integrate AI on-premises rather than in the cloud.

Until a few years ago, Nvidia was best known for its gaming-focused GPUs powering high-end laptops with superior graphics performance. Those same chips, however, proved ideal for training and running AI models, fueling a massive surge in demand as ChatGPT and other AI applications took off and the tech industry pivoted sharply toward AI.

Retail Sentiment For HPQ, DELL Jumps

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for HPQ flipped to ‘extremely bullish’ from ‘neutral’ and the sentiment for DELL shifted to ‘bullish’ from ‘bearish’ – as of early Tuesday.

Traders noticed the latest news and the denial, even as speculation continued to build. “$DELL They always say they aren't in discussion for a takeover, when in fact they really are. Standard practice,” said a trader.

With sharp 51% year-to-date gains, DELL has been high on investors’ radars recently. HPQ shares are down by over 13%.

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