Nvidia (NVDA) posted another blockbuster quarter on Wednesday, as demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure pushed revenue, profits and cash flow to record levels.
The chipmaker reported first-quarter revenue of $81.62 billion, up 85% from $44.06 billion a year earlier and above Wall Street estimates of $78.9 billion, according to FactSet data. Adjusted earnings came in at $1.87 per share, beating analysts’ expectations of $1.76 per share. The company also gave stronger-than-expected guidance for the current quarter, forecasting revenue of around $91 billion.
At the same time, the company also decided to return more cash to shareholders. Nvidia’s board authorized an additional $80 billion in stock buybacks and increased the quarterly dividend to 25 cents per share from 1 cent previously.
However, despite the twists and turns, positive outlook and shareholder returns, the stock was down about 1.5% at press time. Investors were likely looking beyond the quarter and toward potential challenges to growth opportunities for Nvidia as competition for AI chips continued to grow.
Bitcoin miners exposed to AI and high-performance computing infrastructure increased slightly after Nvidia’s earnings report. Shares of Core Scientific (CORZ) and Cipher Mining (CIFR) each rose slightly after hours as investors continued to view certain miners as potential beneficiaries of growing demand for data centers, power capacity and AI computing infrastructure. IREN (IREN), which initially rose, is down about one percent.
“The construction of AI factories – the largest infrastructure expansion in human history – is accelerating at an extraordinary rate,” CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement. “Agentic AI is here, doing productive work, generating real value, and scaling rapidly across businesses and industries,” he added.
Data Center Growth
Particularly for Bitcoin miners moving into the data center sector, the chipmaker’s results have been positive.
Nvidia’s Data Center business continued to drive growth as cloud providers, enterprises and governments increased spending on AI infrastructure powered by the company’s chips.
Hyperscalers generated more than half of Nvidia’s $75 billion in data center revenue during the quarter, reaching about $38 billion and up 12% from the previous quarter, Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said on the company’s earnings call.
The remaining $37 billion came from a segment Nvidia now calls ACIE, which includes AI cloud providers, industrial customers and enterprise markets. Kress said cloud AI revenue more than tripled from the previous year as Nvidia helped rapidly expand AI computing capacity across more than 80 data centers with capacities of more than 10 megawatts.
Kress added that spending on AI infrastructure continues to accelerate and demand for Nvidia’s computing systems remains strong. She also said that Nvidia expects to generate $20 billion in CPU revenue this year.
Nvidia said its outlook does not assume data center computing revenue from China, where U.S. export restrictions have limited sales of advanced AI chips.
Investors have been closely watching Nvidia’s earnings for signs that spending on AI infrastructure remains strong despite growing questions about how quickly the companies will turn those investments into profits.
Nvidia’s results so far suggest that demand continues to exceed expectations, which could be positive for data center providers.
