Nvidia shares are rising in after-market trading after the company posted third quarter earnings that beat Wall Street estimates. All eyes were on Nvidia, the bellwether for the AI industry and the most valuable publicly traded company in the world, as analysts and investors hoped the chipmaker’s third-quarter earnings would assuage concerns about whether the high-flying valuations of AI firms have peaked.
“Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia in a press release. “Compute demand keeps accelerating and compounding across training and inference – each growing exponentially. We’ve entered the virtuous cycle of AI. The AI ecosystem is scaling fast – with more new foundation model makers, more AI startups, across more industries, and in more countries. AI is going everywhere, doing everything, all at once.”
The company surpassed Wall Street’s expectations in nearly every regard, as it has for multiple quarters in a row, a sign that the financially enormous AI boom is not slowing down. Nvidia reported $1.30 in diluted earnings a share on $57.01bn in total revenues beating investor expectations of $1.26 in EPS on $54.9bn in revenue. Sales are up 62% year-over-year. The company reported $51.2bn in revenue from data-center sales, beating expectations of $49bn. The company is also projecting fourth- quarter revenue of around $65bn; analysts had predicted the company would issue a guidance of $61bn.
Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com, said: “This answers a lot of questions about the state of the AI revolution, and the verdict is simple: it is nowhere near its peak. As investors worry that mounting CapEx will force companies to slow their AI adoption cycles, Nvidia continues to prove that data-center scaling is not optional, but rather the central need for every tech business in the world.”
Analysts and experts said that although they were largely confident Nvidia would beat Wall Street expectations, they are anxiously awaiting the earnings call for more news on the status of industry demand for the firm’s AI chips.
“There is still no doubt that Nvidia is far and away the leader for AI-focused chips,” David Meier, senior analyst at investment website the Motley Fool, wrote. “So, I expect revenue, margins, and cash flows to be pretty close to analysts’ estimates. But the valuable information is more likely to come from the commentary about where management sees its markets headed, whether it’s in the AI market or [a] new market the company is currently pursuing.”
Shares in Nvidia have been down 7.9% in November after major investors dumped their stocks in the firm. Peter Thiel’s hedge fund, Thiel Macro, sold off its entire stake in the chipmaker in the last quarter. His holdings would have been valued at about $100m, according to a Reuters report. Softbank has also sold off its $5.8bn holdings in the company, further boosting fears of an AI bubble.
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“I do not believe that Nvidia’s growth is sustainable long-term,” said Forrester’s senior analyst Alvin Nguyen. “AI demand is unprecedented, but if there is a market correction due to supply meeting demand or a slowdown in the pace of innovation/businesses getting used to the pace, I expect that the continued growth in Nvidia share value will slow down.”
