After dominating the stock market for years, Nvidia Corp.’s explosive performance has finally cooled — and now investors are hoping a high-profile tech event in the nation’s capital will deliver the spark needed to reignite its momentum.

The company kicked off its three-day artificial intelligence conference, GTC, on Monday in Washington, D.C. Although the event has been held in the capital before, this year marks the first time Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang will headline the keynote there, scheduled for midday Tuesday. Market watchers say the chosen venue may be part of the message.

“GTC is essentially the Super Bowl of artificial intelligence,” said Gerry Sparrow, chief investment officer of the Sparrow Growth Fund, which holds Nvidia shares. “Hosting it in D.C. could be a signal that something big is coming.”

President Donald Trump added fuel to that speculation on Tuesday, congratulating Huang in public remarks to business leaders in Tokyo — though without clarifying why — and noting he is set to meet with the Nvidia chief on Wednesday. Nvidia stock edged up 0.5% in pre-market trading following those comments.

Until recently, Nvidia needed no help generating excitement. Its pivotal role in the AI boom has propelled it to the top of the S&P 500’s leaderboard each year since 2022. In the first seven months of this year alone, shares surged 32%. But since late summer, the rally has slowed to just 7.7%, while other major chipmakers have continued to surge ahead — the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index has jumped 28% over the same period.

Intel Corp. has been the standout performer recently, more than doubling its stock price over the last quarter thanks to a massive government-backed investment that includes $8.9 billion from the White House in exchange for a 10% stake in the company. Meanwhile, competitors including Broadcom Inc., Applied Materials Inc., Arm Holdings Plc, and most recently Qualcomm Inc. — which rose 11% on Monday after unveiling new AI chips — have all gained ground on Nvidia.

Another factor weighing on the company: China. In August, Nvidia and AMD struck a contentious agreement requiring them to hand over 15% of revenue from AI chip sales in China to the U.S. government. According to Sparrow, expanded access to the Chinese market could eventually add around 10% to Nvidia’s roughly $4.7 trillion market valuation — making Trump’s upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday an event investors are watching closely.

Against that backdrop, holding GTC just blocks from the White House is widely seen as symbolic — a strategic reminder of Nvidia’s growing role not just in tech markets, but in U.S. geopolitical priorities around AI.