Nvidia stock still below $200 mark: what's behind the recent underperformance?

Nvidia NVDA stock rose on Tuesday. Shares of Nvidia were up 1.5% at $197.96 in early trading.

Despite the gain, Nvidia has significantly underperformed the broader semiconductor sector.

The stock is up roughly 5% year to date, compared with a 94% gain for the PHLX Semiconductor Index.

The muted performance marks a sharp contrast to Nvidia's dominant run over the past several years and would represent the stock's weakest first-half showing since 2022.

Investors await Vera Rubin launch

Investor attention is increasingly focused on whether Nvidia's upcoming Vera Rubin platform can restore the company's position as the undisputed leader in AI infrastructure.

The central challenge facing Nvidia is no longer limited to competition from rival graphics processor makers.

While Advanced Micro Devices remains a key competitor, the market has expanded to include custom chip developers and companies focused on central processing units, including Intel.

As artificial intelligence spending accelerates, major technology companies are increasingly distributing infrastructure budgets across a wider range of suppliers rather than concentrating purchases with a single vendor.

The key question for investors is whether Nvidia's next-generation hardware can establish a sufficiently large performance advantage to justify continued dominance in AI deployments.

Rotation away from Nvidia

Nvidia's relative underperformance has become one of the more notable developments in the semiconductor sector this year.

After several years of outsized gains, many investors appear to have taken profits and rotated into other areas of the AI supply chain, including memory chipmakers and emerging AI infrastructure companies.

Intel shares have climbed approximately 250% this year, while Advanced Micro Devices has gained about 152%.

The iShares Semiconductor ETF has advanced roughly 102% over the same period.

The shift suggests investors increasingly believe much of Nvidia's expected growth has already been reflected in the stock price, even as demand for advanced AI hardware remains strong.

Sentiment has also been weighed down by concerns over export restrictions affecting sales to China and broader questions about how long Nvidia can sustain the extraordinary growth rates it has delivered in recent years.

Robotics expansion in China

At the same time, Nvidia is expanding its focus beyond traditional AI infrastructure and into robotics and physical AI.

The company is ramping up hiring for its robotics operations in China, advertising more than a dozen positions across Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, according to a recruitment post published on its official WeChat account.

The openings cover embodied intelligence, simulation, implementation, and solutions.

Nvidia said the robotics team aims to build a "leading robotics platform and ecosystem to help developers and companies create autonomous machines," with the goal of accelerating the deployment of robots from research environments into real-world applications.

The recruitment drive highlights Nvidia's growing emphasis on physical AI, which combines artificial intelligence models with robotics systems that can perceive, reason, and interact with the physical world.

According to the job descriptions, employees will work on technologies including the Project GR00T humanoid robot foundation model, the Cosmos physical simulation world model, and Nvidia's GPU-accelerated computing platforms.