This is the next catalyst that could push Nvidia stock up to 27% higher by January, according to Citi

• Citi analysts put Nvidia on 'positive catalyst watch' for the next 90 days.
• Nvidia's stock could rise as much as 27% as CEO Jensen Huang prepares to deliver the opening keynote at CES 2025.
• Nvidia's GPU chips are central to AI workloads and, increasingly, humanoid robotics.

Analysts at Citi put Nvidia on "positive catalyst watch" for the next 90 days in a recent note.

The firm said shares of the chip giant could surge as much as 27% to its $175 price target heading into early 2025, as founder and CEO Jensen Huang prepares for his big keynote speech at CES 2025.

The Consumer Electronics Show will be held from January 7 to January 10, with Huang set to deliver the opening keynote on January 6 at 6:30 p.m.

The address will be followed by a question and answer session for financial analysts on January 7, Citi said.

"We… open a positive catalyst watch into CES Jan where we expect Blackwell sales expectations to move higher and management to talk about the inference led enterprise and robotics industrial demand inflection," Citi analyst Atif Malik said.

At the CES event, Nvidia will likely further increase its Blackwell product sales expectations as it ramps up production of the next-generation AI chip, according to Malik.

Additionally, Malik expects Nvidia management to tell analysts that its profit margin will likely bottom during their April quarter and move higher from there, as well as talk about an "inference led inflection" in AI robotics for use cases in warehouses, manufacturing, and even humanoid robots.

Companies including Tesla, Figure.AI, and Boston Dynamics have been racing to develop humanoid robots in recent years, and Nvidia's GPU chips have taken center stage in those devices.

At Nvidia's annual GTC conference in March 2024, Huang welcomed nine different humanoid robots to the stage that were partly powered by Nvidia's chips.

Citi rates Nvidia shares at a "Buy" and increased its price target to $175 from $170 after the company's third-quarter earnings release last week.

Shares of Nvidia have surged 176% year-to-date amid the frenzy for the company's AI-enabling GPU chips.