Stifel Reiterates Buy on NVIDIA After Expanded Meta Partnership

Font: Financial Modeling Prep  • Feb 18, 2026

Stifel reaffirmed its Buy rating and $250 price target on NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA), citing a newly expanded multi-year partnership with Meta.

The analyst noted that NVIDIA announced a multi-generational collaboration with Meta to build on-premises, cloud, and AI infrastructure, extending prior partnerships. The initiative is expected to involve large-scale deployment of NVIDIA CPUs, GPUs, and Spectrum-X Ethernet networking solutions.

Meta is also set to adopt NVIDIA’s rack-scale Confidential Computing capabilities, introduced during the company’s CES keynote, as a foundational element of the upcoming Vera Rubin platform.

Key takeaways included the first large-scale deployment of NVIDIA’s Grace CPU-only systems, supported by infrastructure co-design and software optimization efforts between the companies. The partnership also reinforced validation of NVIDIA’s Spectrum-X networking platform and expanded adoption of Confidential Computing, initially for WhatsApp private processing and eventually for broader use cases.

Stifel stated that the collaboration strengthens the long-term structural alignment between NVIDIA and Meta and further validates NVIDIA’s “extreme co-design” strategy, which evolves the company from a chip supplier into a full-stack AI platform solutions provider.

While hyperscalers are expected to continue investing in proprietary silicon and networking initiatives alongside vendors such as Celestica and Arista Networks, the firm believes NVIDIA remains well positioned to compete through its integrated architecture approach.