Nvidia’s revenue blows past Wall Street expectations as AI boom accelerates | Nvidia
Nvidia continued its years-long streak of beating Wall Street’s growth expectations on Wednesday, reassuring most investors that the AI boom, especially the boom in global data centers, will continue apace.
“The construction of AI factories, the largest infrastructure expansion in human history, is accelerating at a phenomenal pace,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. a statement. “Agent AI is here; it does productive work, generates real value, and scales rapidly across companies and industries.”
Many analysts view Nvidia’s financial performance as a broader referendum on the development of artificial intelligence. Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, leads the semiconductor chip market with a market value of $5.4 trillion, and has cashed in on big tech’s AI ambitions by providing the key components, software and infrastructure to fuel that expansion. US tech giants collectively plan to spend about $750 billion on AI infrastructure this year, with a significant portion of that going to chips for data centers. Nvidia expects its hyperscale data centers to grow faster than its capital spending, Huang said Wednesday.
The bulk of Nvidia’s revenue comes from its data center business. On Wednesday, the chip maker reported that this vertical grew by 92% year-on-year to a record $75.2 billion. However, the company faces some competition in producing chips from other tech giants such as Amazon and Google.
Still, Nvidia beat analysts’ expectations for revenue of $78.86 billion for the first quarter of 2026, bringing in $81.62 billion for the quarter. The chipmaker also reported earnings of $1.87 per share, beating Wall Street expectations of $1.76 per share.
Huang joined Elon Musk and Donald Trump aboard Air Force One for a trip to China last week. Huang expressed some hope that Nvidia could expand into China, although it’s unclear whether Chinese officials would agree to use American technology. Trump administration in December allowed Nvidia will export H200 AI chips to China, and the US will receive a 25% fee on these sales. “The Chinese government needs to decide: how much of their domestic market do they want to protect?” Huang said in an interview: last week via Bloomberg Television. “My opinion is that the market will open over time.” Nvidia said in its outlook on Wednesday that it does not currently expect data center computing revenue from China.
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress reiterated on Wednesday’s earnings call that Nvidia does not generate any revenue from sales of these chips to China and that it is unclear whether any imports will be allowed into the country. Sales of the company’s chips were in limbo. Trump approves sale of Nvidia chips in China, but He said Xi Jinping blocked them.
Nvidia was also trying to expand its footprint in Southeast Asia. Singapore on Wednesday announced It was stated that Nvidia will establish a research center focused on increasing the efficiency of artificial intelligence infrastructure in the country.
Nvidia announced A new AI system will be released early this year, expected to be released in the second half of 2026. chip manufacturer, Vera Rubin The platform will be a “generation leap” that will “launch the largest infrastructure build in history.”
“In my opinion, we will be in short supply for Vera Rubin’s entire life,” Huang said Wednesday.
The CEOs of OpenAI and Anthropic said Nvidia’s infrastructure and its ability to keep up is important to their ability to run powerful models safely and at scale.
“The world is rebuilding computing for agency AI and robotic physical AI. Nvidia is at the center of these transitions,” Huang said.
