- NEAR rose more than 9% as bulls rode the latest artificial intelligence–related sentiment.
- The Nvidia–OpenAI partnership and a $100 billion investment are a major vote of confidence for the ecosystem.
- In the short term, NEAR’s price could target a 200% gain toward $8.20.
NEAR Protocol’s price jumped about 9% over the past 24 hours as AI developments bolstered investor sentiment.
When AI-related tokens such as AI Companions surged, NEAR climbed more than 9% to highs near $3.15.
The rally marked a sharp rebound from intraday lows, fueled by renewed enthusiasm around AI. Gains pushed NEAR past a trend that had been holding the broader crypto market back while it recovered from a $1.7 billion wipeout amid heavy losses.
NEAR Protocol price rebounds amid major AI headlines
NEAR’s token registered a strong 9% advance on September 23, 2025, bouncing from recent volatility to trade around $3.15 by midday, according to major exchange data.
The price rise followed a period of consolidation, after the token dipped below $2.90 earlier in the week amid wider market pressure.
Volume also surged notably, rising more than 25% to $370 million as investor confidence in NEAR increased.
At the heart of this momentum is NEAR’s positioning as a blockchain for AI—a narrative reinforced by recent ecosystem progress.
On September 16, NEAR announced a key integration with the Allora network that enhances its Shade Agent infrastructure with predictive AI capabilities.
The collaboration includes four AI engineering competitions focused on price-prediction challenges across major chains, including NEAR, Solana, Bitcoin and Ethereum.
By enabling autonomous agents to interact seamlessly across multiple chains while preserving data privacy, Shade Agents exemplify NEAR’s vision to serve as an execution layer for the AI economy.
These developments lifted the combined market capitalization of AI-related tokens to more than $34 billion.
Developers and capital are flowing into leading AI projects, and NEAR’s scalable, sharded architecture gives it an advantage.
Nvidia’s $100 billion stake in OpenAI
The excitement intensified after the seismic announcement from OpenAI and Nvidia on September 22, 2025, which sent ripples through the AI and crypto sectors.
Nvidia revealed plans to invest up to $100 billion into OpenAI to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of AI data center capacity powered by millions of its GPUs—what executives described as “the largest AI infrastructure deployment in history.”
The first gigawatt is slated to launch by late 2026 using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, with the partnership aiming to accelerate OpenAI’s push toward superintelligent systems.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman emphasized the role of this scale in powering agentic AI and multimodal applications.
Notably, the breakthrough collaboration boosted Nvidia shares by nearly 4%, adding roughly $170 billion to its market capitalization and further fueling the AI supercycle.
Riding that sentiment, NEAR climbed 9% in the past 24 hours and is up more than 16% over the last week.
Near-term price outlook
With AI momentum building, analysts foresee a bullish trajectory for crypto tokens within the ecosystem. Projects such as Worldcoin, Bittensor and Render are seeing strong network growth, and NEAR sits among these leaders.
Previous AI-driven bullish rotations have revived many tokens at the intersection of AI and blockchain.
In 2025 and beyond, Near Protocol is positioning itself as a leading platform. With AI integration, developer adoption and favorable macro tailwinds—such as recent Federal Reserve rate cuts—NEAR’s price has held at key levels.
Short-term network growth metrics and technical strength are critical. The daily chart suggests NEAR could successfully test resistance at $3.50, then target $4.00 and ultimately $8.20 for a potential 200% rally.
On the downside, support is likely around $2.30 and $1.89.