TLDR
- H100 chip rental rates rose 22% in one month to $3.28 per hour in September 2026
- Jensen Huang called Nvidia compute “fungible, durable and highly rentable”
- H100 rentals once cost $7 to $8 per hour when first launched
- Nvidia posted record quarterly revenue of $96.2 billion in August 2026, up 106% year over year
- 29 analysts rate NVDA a Strong Buy with an average price target of $325.23
Nvidia (NVDA) stock opened at $230.36 on Tuesday, up 0.84% on the day, as CEO Jensen Huang made a fresh case for the long-term value of older Nvidia hardware.
Huang said “NVIDIA compute is fungible, durable and highly rentable. It is a productive, revenue-generating asset.” He was pointing to a 22% jump in hourly rental prices for the H100 chip over the past month.
Rental rates for the three-year-old H100 hit $3.28 per hour in September 2026. That chip was the main processor powering early AI tools and remains in heavy use today.
Still, some context is worth noting. When the H100 first launched, on-demand rental rates at major cloud firms ran between $7 and $8 per hour. The recent climb is a recovery, not a record high.
Why Rental Prices Are Rising
Newer Nvidia Blackwell chips are being kept for large enterprise buyers, leaving older H100 clusters to pick up the slack for everyday AI workloads.
Tight power and memory supplies across data centers are also keeping rental prices elevated. That supply crunch is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here.
Cloud provider CoreWeave (CRWV) carried $35 billion in debt as of June 2026. Nvidia has also agreed to rent back unused compute from partner networks, which critics say helps pad quarterly revenue figures.
Short sellers, including Michael Burry, argue that real chip lifespans are shorter than what companies report. Nvidia officially depreciates its chips over five to six years, but skeptics say that timeline is too generous.
Record Revenue and Analyst Views
Nvidia reported $96.22 billion in revenue for its most recent quarter, up 105.9% year over year. Earnings per share came in at $2.22, beating analyst estimates of $2.09.
The blowout report sent NVDA stock up more than 4% after it was released in August 2026.
The board also authorized an $80 billion stock buyback program, and a quarterly dividend of $0.25 per share is set to be paid on October 1, 2026.
Institutional interest remains strong. Webster Bank N.A. holds 206,799 Nvidia shares valued at around $41.38 million, making NVDA its sixth-largest position, though it trimmed the stake by 3.3% in Q2.
Nvidia is also pursuing a planned $12.93 billion acquisition of Hugging Face, which analysts say could deepen its competitive position in the AI software layer.
On TipRanks, 29 analysts rate NVDA a Strong Buy, all unanimous. The average 12-month price target sits at $325.23, implying roughly 41% upside from current levels.
Separately, KGI Securities raised its Nvidia price target from $335 to $345 on August 27, 2026. BMO Capital Markets has a $340 target with an outperform rating.
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