The event was a spinoff of the Chicago Music Show, which had been serving as the main event for exhibiting consumer electronics.
The first CES had 17,500 attendees and over 100 exhibitors at the Hilton and Americana hotels.
Pocket radios and TVs with integrated circuits were among the items on display, as well as a flood of electronics from Japanese manufacturers.
The event moved to Las Vegas in 1978 and has continued to grow, with last year's CES pulling in over 138,000 attendees and more than 4,300 exhibitors.
CES 2025 is set to run from Jan. 7-10, with pre-show events beginning a day earlier.
"This is where brands get business done, meet new partners and where the industry’s sharpest minds take the stage to unveil their latest releases and boldest breakthrough," according to the event's website. "Don't be left in the past as we shape the future."
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is set to give the opening keynote address at CES in Las Vegas.Shutterstock
Firm sees tech stocks surging in 2025
Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence chipmaking Godzilla Nvidia (NVDA) is set to give the opening keynote address on Jan. 6.
Nvidia was hands down the biggest thing in tech in 2024.
The Santa Clara, Calif., company joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Nov. 8, replacing Intel (INTC) and was the Dow's top performer for the year, with shares rising 171%.
Nvidia reached a $3 trillion market cap and temporarily surpassed Apple (AAPL) as the most valuable company on Earth before settling into the No. 2 position.
Wedbush analysts recently named Nvidia one of its Top 10 Tech Winners for the "AI Revolution" in 2025, along with Palantir (PLTR) , Tesla (TSLA) , Salesforce (CRM) , and Apple to name a few.
The firm said it believes tech stocks will be robust in 2025 on the shoulders of the AI Revolution and $2 trillion-plus of incremental AI capital expenditures over the next three years, according to The Fly.
Wedbush expects tech stocks to be up 25% in 2025 as Wall Street further digests a less regulatory spider web under incoming President Donald Trump and the days of Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan are in the rear-view mirror.
Tech will also be boosted by stronger AI initiatives within the Beltway on the way, and a “goldilocks foundation” for Big Tech and Tesla looking into 2025 and beyond, the firm said.
Expect "some white-knuckle moments" in 2025 along the way on the heels of Fed worries, China tariff poker game, and stretched valuation chorus moments, Wedbush said.
However, analysts believe this will create opportunities to own the tech theme and key names, which has been its core investing tech playbook for the last two years
Bank of America Securities analysts reiterated their buy rating on “sector top pick” Nvidia ahead of CES.
While stating that “the big themes have already been mentioned in the media ahead of the event,” the firm still sees CES as a positive catalyst that can re-assert Nvidia's "platform dominance" and opportunity in high-growth markets, the firm said in a research note.
Analysts looking for updates from Nvidia
At the event, the firm is looking for updates on the company's robotics strategy with Jetson Thor – a specialized computer designed for powering sophisticated humanoid robots – from silicon to software and emergence of a "physical AI" theme.
Nvidia is expected to launch Jetson Thor in the first half of 2025, and The Financial Times reported that "Nvidia is betting on robotics as its next big growth driver, as the world’s most valuable semiconductor company faces increasing competition in its core artificial intelligence chipmaking business."
BofA, which has a $190 stock price target on Nvidia, said it was also looking for updates on the launch of RTX 50xx, Blackwell variants of PC gaming cards with enhanced "neural rendering" and faster GDDR7 memory.
In addition, the firm wants to hear more about a potential entry into AI PCs, which is likely through a partnership or a "small chance of a standalone PC CPU" and an update on the data center, including current-gen Blackwell, upgraded variants and a teaser on next-gen Rubin AI chip platform due in calendar year 2026.
"We expect Nvidia to make a strong push into robotics leveraging its end-end capabilities in silicon (Jetson processor chips) to software (used to simulate, train and run AI models, Isaac robotics operating system)," Wedbush said.
"On the surface, the leveraging of AI from the computing/efficiency (chatbots, co-pilots) to the physical (sensors, robots) realm seems like the next logical step."
However, the firm said that it sees a challenge in making the products reliable enough, cheap enough, and pervasive enough to spawn credible business models.
"From that perspective, robotics could remain another cool but niche opportunity such as metaverse or autonomous cars," Wedbush said.
"So, while we don't doubt Nvidia's capabilities, we are unsure as to when and how fast they can influence Nvidia's financials," the firm added.
