Chip giant Nvidia has set a new sales record, a sign that demand for artificial intelligence remains strong despite fearsthe technology may be overhyped.
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, on Wednesday reported revenue of $46.74bn for the three months that ended in July, a rise of 56 percent year-on-year.
Profit for the quarter was $26.42bn, a yearly rise of 59 percent.
Nvidia’s latest earnings report had been hotly anticipated as the tech giant is widely seen as a barometer of the AI boom, which has lifted the US stock market from all-time high to all-time high.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that production of Blackwell Ultra, Nvidia’s latest platform using its most advanced chips, was ramping up “at full speed” and demand for the company’s products was “extraordinary”.
“The AI race is on, and Blackwell is the platform at its centre,” Jensen said.
Looking ahead, the Santa Clara, California-based tech giant predicted revenue of $54bn, plus or minus 2 percent, for the July-September quarter, which would be slightly above market expectations.
Despite the robust results, Nvidia’s stock price fell more than 3 percent in after-hours trading, an indication of the sky-high expectations attached to the chipmaker, which is valued at more than $4.4 trillion.
Nvidia’s sales notably did not include any shipments to China, whose market is subject to US government export controls intended to blunt Beijing’s ability to develop AI.
US President Donald Trump’s administration earlier this month lifted a ban on sales of Nvidia’s H20 chip, which was designed specifically for the Chinese market, following concerted lobbying by Huang.
As part of its agreement with the Trump administration, Nvidia agreed to pay the US government 15 percent of revenues from chip sales in China.
The lifting of the ban on the H20 raises the possibility that Nvidia could have potentially enormous untapped sales potential in the world’s second-largest economy, though its prospects have been complicated by a recent directive by Beijing urging local firms against doing business with the company.
“Just imagine what will happen to this stock if the China business even comes half back to life,” The Kobeissi Letter, a newsletter following capital markets, said.
“Jensen Huang will undoubtedly be working overtime on the China situation. The AI Revolution is in full swing.”
Fuelled by explosive demand for its AI, Nvidia’s revenue has grown at breakneck speed over the past two years.
The company posted triple-digit revenue growth for five straight quarters between mid-2023 and 2024.
Since the start of 2023, the price of Nvidia shares has multiplied more than 11 times over, with the stock up more than 30 percent so far this year.
The firm’s stellar performance, underpinned by multibillion-dollar AI investments by tech giants including Microsoft, Meta and Amazon, has stoked discussion about whether AI could be in a bubble.
In an interview with The Verge earlier this month, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who oversaw the release of the groundbreaking AI model ChatGPT, said he believed that investors were “overexcited” about the technology.
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