Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, joins CNBC's 'Halftime Report' to discuss a multitude of topics ranging from the Cerebras IPO, Nvidia and the future of AI and how it will affect markets.
What Brad Gerstner said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Brad Gerstner, founder and CEO of Altimeter Capital, discussed Nvidia's recent stock performance, the Cerebras IPO, and the future of AI inference. He noted that Nvidia, his largest holding at nearly 20% of the portfolio, had been a drag until recently, hitting a low of $170-172 on March 30, but the rally is not about China, which is de minimis. He cited Nvidia's announced $1 trillion in demand over the next 6-8 quarters for Blackwell and Vera Rubin chips. Gerstner argued Nvidia trades at 14-15 times fully taxed GAAP earnings despite being the best AI company, and the market is catching up. He dismissed the idea of picking another stock, emphasizing Nvidia's market leadership. On Cerebras, he highlighted their wafer-scale chip solving the memory wall for low-latency inference, and that there is room for multiple winners. He stressed that token production is intelligence, and the industry is moving from FLOPS to inference, with challenges around power and data centers.
Key takeaways
Nvidia is Altimeter's largest holding at nearly 20% of the portfolio, and its stock hit a low of $170-172 on March 30 before rallying.
Nvidia has announced $1 trillion in demand over the next 6-8 quarters for Blackwell and Vera Rubin chips.
Nvidia trades at 14-15 times fully taxed GAAP earnings, making it the cheapest in the AI trade.
Cerebras, which Altimeter invested in 8-9 years ago, successfully put memory on a wafer-scale chip, solving the memory wall for inference.
The world is moving from FLOPS to inference, and the challenge is finding power and data centers to support demand.
Numbers and commitments
Figure
What it refers to
Type
At
$1 trillion
announced demand for Blackwell and Vera Rubin chips over 6-8 quarters
0:24You know, what should we make of what Nvidia is doing and what Jensen Huang could bring home on this trip?
2:23As you look over your current holdings or stocks that you're not in, what do you think is another candidate that we're ignoring right now that has this type of potential?
3:57But as I look at a company like Cerebras getting ready to IPO, what they do is proposing to come for Nvidia's lunch, right?
5:30And this company is going to be right along there, right?
6:49Is that what we're seeing, the race to solve that problem so that the price of compute doesn't outrun our willingness to do more and more things with AI?
Early investor in Cerebras, which is going public today. And we're awaiting that first trade. I do want to show you what the markets are doing today. New highs for the S&P, new highs for the Nasdaq. The Dow has retaken 50,000 yet again. Nasdaq's on pace for its seventh positive week in a row. It is the first time it's done that since October of 2024.
Let's begin with the tech trade. For obvious reasons. Nvidia for obvious reasons. That new record high today. You did have that Reuters report. The U.S. has cleared the H200 chip sales to ten firms. May not be entirely new, but we are learning names. And as Jensen Huang is in China, we're wondering what he might come back with. Are they going to be able to sell those chips there as he wants? The street remains optimistic. UBS has taken the price target to 275. Cantor goes to 350. So there is a lot of optimism for a stock that everybody here owns. You get the first shot at this because it's one of your largest positions. It's so good to have you in the house. It doesn't happen that often if ever. So we're so happy to have you. You know, what should we make of what Nvidia is doing and what Jensen Huang could bring home on this trip?
Well, I mean, the most unusual thing is Nvidia didn't do anything for six months as the rest of the semiconductor trade really catapulted to new highs. So over six months, remember Nvidia hit $210 a share. And so, you know, as our largest holding, it's almost 20% of our overall portfolio. But it's actually been a drag from a performance perspective up until recently. On the March 30th low, I think it hit 170 or $172 a share. And so the catch up here really hasn't been about China at all, Scott. And by the way, China's de minimis at this point to Nvidia. They've announced $1 trillion over the course of the next 6 to 8 quarters of demand on Blackwells and now Vera Rubins. And so this is a little bit of icing on top of the cake to be able to sell their older H200s to China. I don't think that's what's moving the stock. They're going to report earnings next week. And I think what's moving the stock is everybody's looking at the entire complex and saying the most important company globally in AI, the best company executing today in AI is Nvidia. Why is it trading at 14 or 15 times fully taxed GAAP earnings when the rest of the complex is so crazy?
What's so crazy is this stock sat at 180 for six months. Anyone who wanted it could have had it for sure, and it was at that price the cheapest multiple on forward earnings. You've been able to buy Nvidia since before ChatGPT. So it's just this astonishing thing where in plain sight Amazon rallied, Alphabet rallied, AMD, Broadcom, one after another. They just took off. And this thing was just look at this. Is there another one of these that's hiding in plain sight? As you look over your current holdings or stocks that you're not in, what do you think is another candidate that we're ignoring right now that has this type of potential?
Well, welcome to the market that we're in. I mean, the fact of the matter is I'm not smart enough, nor are most retail investors at home, to pick it that closely, right? The reason we've been in Nvidia is because we know they are the market leader. We know that they are the cheapest in the trade. And so we just had to assess at some point in time numbers would matter. The economic law of gravity here is that if they deliver the returns that we expect, that they're going to deliver, one of two things is going to happen. Either they'll buy back all their own shares because the market won't value them, or the market will buy them. And I think the market at this point in time is saying this doesn't make any sense. But if you said to me, Josh, Brad, what is the catalyst that finally got this thing moving? I couldn't tell you.
7 more exchanges in this transcript
Sign in free to read the rest of this interview. No card required.
Gerstner, B. (2026, May 14). The tech takeoff: Altimeter's Brad Gerstner on Nvidia, the Cerebras IPO and the future of AI [Interview transcript]. CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/909350/
MLA
Brad Gerstner. "The tech takeoff: Altimeter's Brad Gerstner on Nvidia, the Cerebras IPO and the future of AI." CNBC Television, 14 May. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/909350/.
BibTeX
@misc{gerstner2026_909350,
author = {Brad Gerstner},
title = {The tech takeoff: Altimeter's Brad Gerstner on Nvidia, the Cerebras IPO and the future of AI},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNBC Television. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {may},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/909350/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
