NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) and SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK) delivered blockbuster quarters that pulled the AI infrastructure trade in opposite directions. Jensen Huang’s GPU platform posted $81.61 billion in fiscal Q1 revenue. Under CEO David Goeckeler, SanDisk’s NAND business is riding the AI storage boom. Fiscal Q3 revenue more than tripled, while Datacenter sales rose more than sevenfold from a year earlier. Jim Cramer noticed something odd about how the market is pricing them.
Cramer Calls the Multiple “Insulting”
On the July 9 episode of Mad Money, Cramer took aim at the technical setup directly: “Some of the commodity chip companies like SanDisk now have price earnings multiples that are higher on next year’s earnings than Nvidia. I regard that as insulting.” He then added, “SanDisk is a commodity chip maker. Nvidia is the most proprietary chip company in the history of the world.”
Drama aside, the math backs his frustration. NVIDIA trades at a forward P/E of 23. SanDisk trades at a forward P/E of 28. The GPU monopoly is cheaper on next year’s numbers than the NAND supplier feeding its racks. It shows just how far the AI trade has widened, with investors now paying up for the memory suppliers that stock the very systems NVIDIA helped make indispensable. Even Jensen Huang has framed AI as essential infrastructure, a buildout that depends on more than GPUs alone.
It is a little A Few Good Men: Wall Street may not love the multiple, but the AI buildout still needs SanDisk in the supply chain.
Two Very Different Businesses
NVIDIA’s Q1 FY27 performance was dominant. Data Center revenue reached $75.25 billion, up 92% YoY, with networking (InfiniBand, NVLink, Spectrum-X) revenue alone up 199%. Non-GAAP gross margin held at 75.0%. Huang framed the moment plainly: “The buildout of AI factories, the largest infrastructure expansion in human history, is accelerating at extraordinary speed.” Blackwell Ultra and the upcoming Vera Rubin platform anchor a full-stack roadmap that hyperscalers cannot swap out.
SanDisk’s Q3 FY26 was a different shock. Revenue jumped 251% to $5.95 billion, and gross margin exploded to 78.4% from 22.5% a year earlier. Datacenter revenue grew 645% YoY. Goeckeler credited a mix shift and a “New Business Model” of multi-year customer commitments. That margin sits on NAND pricing, which is cyclical.
| Lens | NVIDIA | SanDisk |
| Forward P/E | 23 | 28 |
| Latest Gross Margin | 75.0% | 78.4% |
| Business Type | Proprietary GPU platform | NAND flash storage |
| YoY Revenue Growth | 85.2% | 251% |
Where the Rally Diverges From Reality
SanDisk shares have run 707.11% year to date to $1,915.92. Our internal price prediction model tags SanDisk with a negative 13.62% expected return from here. NVIDIA is up 13.25% YTD with an analyst consensus target of $301.62 against a current price of $210.96. One stock is priced for continued dominance. The other is priced for a super-cycle that has never held for a full decade in NAND history.
Also worth a look: our research on AI infrastructure names beyond chipmakers adds context to how the buildout is spreading beyond silicon.
Why Cramer Is Right
NVIDIA sells software-wrapped compute with a CUDA moat, a $119 billion supply chain-driven book/commitments, and hyperscalers on allocation. SanDisk sells a commodity that trades on spot pricing and hyperscaler order timing. Paying up for the commodity while getting the monopoly at a discount feels backwards. If NAND pricing softens even modestly in 2027, that 78.4% gross margin compresses fast, and the premium multiple has nowhere to hide. On a valuation-versus-moat basis, NVIDIA screens as the more defensible setup of the two.
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