Chip maker Nvidia posted better-than-expected results for the January quarter on Wednesday and forecast current-quarter revenue above market estimates, betting on Big Tech’s unabated spending on its AI processors.
But its stock traded flat after hours, as investors, used to solid revenue beats from the company for 14 straight quarters, were likely disappointed by the uneventful results that were released 10 minutes after the expected time.
On the post-earnings conference call, UBS analyst Tim Arcuri asked executives whether Nvidia was looking to give back to shareholders some of the US$100-billion cash it was likely to generate this year, because “no matter how good the results have been, the stock hasn’t really gone up much”. In response, Nvidia chief financial officer Colette Kress said the company wanted to keep investing in the AI ecosystem.
CEO Jensen Huang said the output generated by AI models would be the foundation of future computing and Nvidia would keep building more infrastructure to support that. “This new way of doing computing is not going to go back,” he said.
Seeking to alleviate concerns that a supply crunch at its chip contract maker TSMC was getting in the way of its growth, Nvidia said it had secured enough chip inventory and capacity to meet demand beyond the next several quarters. The shortage, though, will affect its gaming business, the company said.
The world’s most valuable company expects fiscal first-quarter sales of $78-billion, plus or minus 2%, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $72.6-billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
‘A good beat’
“This was a good beat and raise, the usual for Nvidia, but based on the reactions preliminarily, it seems a lot was baked in to the cake so far,” said Ken Mahoney, CEO at Mahoney Asset Management, which holds shares of Nvidia.
The fourth-quarter results are good news for AI investors, who are looking to Nvidia’s performance to gauge whether the hundreds of billions of dollars that Big Tech is pouring into data centre infrastructure are paying off. Hyperscalers including Meta Platforms — a big Nvidia customer — have forecast total capital expenditure of at least $630-billion in 2026, with most of the spending earmarked for data centres and processors.
Read: AI won’t replace software, says Nvidia CEO amid market rout
“It’s clear from Nvidia’s latest numbers and their forecast that concerns about an AI slowdown simply are not showing up yet,” said Bob O’Donnell, chief analyst at Technalysis Research.
Still, there are signs of risk to Nvidia’s long-held dominance in making AI chips. Smaller rival AMD is set to unveil a new flagship AI server later this year and has clinched deals with Nvidia’s top customers, including Meta. Google, meanwhile, has emerged as a top rival with a deal to provide Claude chatbot creator Anthropic with its in-house chips called TPUs. Google is also in talks to supply Meta, according to media reports.
Big Tech is increasingly turning inward in the quest for more computing power, dedicating resources to designing in-house chips that they are deploying in their data centres.
Nvidia’s sales concentration among a few key customers crept up during its just-ended fiscal 2026, with two customers making up 36% of sales. During the previous fiscal year, three customers made up 34% of sales.
Read: Nvidia’s next AI chips are in full production
Nvidia reported January-quarter sales rose 94% to $68.1-billion, beating estimates of $66.2-billion. Adjusted profit came in at $1.62/share, compared with estimates of $1.53, according to LSEG data. — Arsheeya Bajwa, Zaheer Kachwala, Stephen Nellis and Max A Cherney, (c) 2026 Reuters
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