CNBC Daily Open: Nvidia’s earnings beat and AI developments provide some respite for markets

It's a good day for the artificial intelligence sector. New partnerships and earnings reports from AI-related companies lifted sentiment which had been battered by fears over AI hitting companies from software to real estate and logistics.

The biggest news was Nvidia's earnings. The world's most valuable company reported better-than-expected fiscal fourth-quarter results after the bell Wednesday stateside, clocking 75% revenue growth in its core data center business. The stock rose 1.4% in extended trading. 

CEO Jensen Huang, in an interview with CNBC's Becky Quick, said demand for computing was "off the charts" as AI technology advances rapidly.

When asked about the threat of AI to software, Huang said that "the markets got it wrong."

In what he described as "counterintuitive," Huang said that AI agents won't replace these software tools, but will use them instead.

"Nobody's going to service better than ServiceNow, and they're going to come up with agents that are really fine-tuned and optimized for the work that uses the tools that they have," he said, adding that AI was "going to help us."

The anticipated Nvidia report and fellow AI player Oracle's rating upgrade by Oppenheimer seemed to assuage investor concerns over AI-led disruption, giving U.S. markets a boost Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 300 points, the S&P 500 added 0.81% and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.26%.

Dan Niles, founder of Niles Investment Management, struck a cautious note though: "People need to remember that all everything, whether it's the railroads, canals, the internet, etc, all of these things tend to get overbuilt, and then we figure out who the winners and losers are going to be. And I think that's what the market is struggling with," he said on "Squawk Box Asia" this morning.

He warned that "there are some real companies that are going to go to zero in the software space."

Signaling concerns had not fully dissipated, Salesforce on Wednesday gave mixed guidance for its fiscal first quarter, sending its stock tumbling nearly 5% in after-hours trading. The software maker's revenue, however, grew 12% year over year in its fiscal fourth quarter, its fastest growth rate in two years. 

CNBC Pro subscribers can watch the full interview with Jensen Huang.

— CNBC's Anniek Bao, Becky Quick, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this story.

Thrive Capital pumped about $1 billion into OpenAI at a $285 billion valuation in December, a source confirmed Wednesday. The venture capital firm has been one of the AI startup's major financial backers. The Wall Street Journal was first to report on Thrive's investment.

Nvidia and Oracle lift U.S. markets. Wall Street closed in the green on Nvidia's anticipated after-the-bell report and Oracle's rating upgrade by Oppenheimer. Japan's Nikkei 225 breached the 59,000 mark for the first time, driven by central bank board picks seen as dovish in their policy stance. Asia tech stocks also rallied.

Big Tech to sign pledge on data center power costs. That's slated to happen on March 4, when Trump will meet major tech firms at the White House. The companies will commit to "build, bring, or buy their own power supply for new AI data centers," White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told CNBC.

Samsung launches third "AI phone" series, as the smartphone industry grapples with a global memory chips shortage. The Galaxy S26 series puts Alphabet's Gemini artificial intelligence front and center, ahead of its integration with Siri on Apple's iPhones.

[PRO] European tech stocks to watch after Nvidia print. Nvidia's strong guidance could boost the European tech sector, particularly in semiconductors and infrastructure, according to an analyst, who pointed to European tech stocks that would likely react the most. 

Trump insists trade deals will hold — but partners aren't so sure

President Donald Trump defended his tariff agenda during his State of the Union address Tuesday, even as a Supreme Court ruling striking down his emergency tariffs cast fresh confusion over the raft of trade deals negotiated with global partners.

″[Trading partners] made concessions in exchange for specific tariff treatment that was grounded in IEEPA. That legal basis no longer exists," said Johannes Fritz, CEO of the St.Gallen Endowment for Prosperity through Trade.

Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief economist for Asia Pacific at Natixis, said countries that did not negotiate tariff reductions may now benefit more.

— Anniek Bao