Sales of Nvidia stock soar in UAE in record rally

Shutterstock/Jameson Wu

• World’s most valuable company
• Overtakes Apple
• Most popular stock of 2024

As Nvidia’s stock market value hit $3.65 trillion on Thursday to make it the world’s most valuable company, so shares are in hot demand among retail investors in the Gulf. 

The Californian chipmaker overtook Apple, which previously held the record for the highest closing market capitalisation at $3.57 trillion on October 21.

“It’s our most popular stock of 2024 so far,” said Mark Chahwan, co-founder and CEO of the UAE trading platform Sarwa. 

“Nvidia alone accounted for more than 10 percent of the total trading volume on our platform, compared to only 2 percent in the year prior.”

Nvidia is a popular stock across all types of trader, from long-term buy-and-hold investors to more active buyers and sellers, he said. In the third quarter of 2024, more than 35 percent of traders bought or sold Nvidia on Sarwa.

The stock market rally in Nvidia shares is largely attributed to Donald Trump’s US election victory, with investors optimistic about looser regulations and tax cuts under his presidency.

Nvidia’s value has tripled in 2024 so far on the back of the generative AI boom as its chips are an integral part of the artificial intelligence supply chain.

The company has become increasingly involved in the region, in particular in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as they pour billions of dollars into building a local AI infrastructure and ecosystems.

The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority announced an Arabic AI chat model called Allam, which was developed with Nvidia. And the chipmaker plans to provide its DGX SuperPOD data centre infrastructure, including its Blackwell chip, to the Saudi government as part of the project.

The UAE AI company G42 also partnered with Nvidia to set up the Earth-2 Climate Tech Lab in Abu Dhabi, utilising AI to better predict the weather.

Technological sovereignty

G42’s subsidiary Core42 announced in October that it would deploy Nvidia’s H100 chip for the first time in the UAE as part of a newly developed specialised system which allows the country to utilise US computing power within the emirates without giving up technological sovereignty.

Nvidia marked its first large-scale deployment in the Middle East in June, signing a deal with the telecommunications company Ooredoo to provide AI technology to the company’s data centres in Qatar, Algeria, Tunisia, Oman, Kuwait and the Maldives. 

The US has banned the sale of Nvidia’s most powerful chips in China and Russia over potential use in military applications. This includes the Nvidia H100 chip, which is a preferred processor for AI firms, including OpenAI. 

• UAE bypasses Nvidia chip restrictions to grow AI capabilities

• Aramco to buy AI chips from Abu Dhabi fund-backed Cerebras

• Nvidia stocks are all the rage in UAE as trading surges 50%

The ban is being expanded to include more than 40 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, to prevent the chips from being passed to US rivals through intermediaries. The expanded ban is likely to go into effect by November 17.

Before the block was put in place the US had been trying to control the expansion of AI technologies into the Gulf, to control its usage and ensure that projects meet its licensing requirements. Microsoft’s agreement with G42, for example, required G42 to cut its ties to the Chinese company Huawei.

Nvidia, whose shares stood at $148.88 at 12:00 GMT on Friday, up $100 on the year to date, is expected to report its financial results on November 20.