The AI boom is here, and Nvidia is reaping all the benefits.
Shares of Nvidia exploded 28% higher Thursday after reporting earnings and sales that surged well above Wall Street's already lofty expectations. That was enough to make investors temporarily forget about America's dangerous debt ceiling standoff, sending the broader stock market higher — even after credit rating agency Fitch warned late Wednesday that America could soon lose its sterling AAA debt rating.
Nvidia makes chips that power generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, such as text and images, in response to user prompts. That's the kind of AI underlying ChatGPT, Google's Bard, Dall-E and many of the other new AI technologies.
"The computer industry is going through two simultaneous transitions — accelerated computing and generative AI," said Jensen Huang, Nvidia's CEO, in a statement. "A trillion dollars of installed global data center infrastructure will transition from general purpose to accelerated computing as companies race to apply generative AI into every product, service and business process."
Huang said Nvidia is increasing supply of its entire suite of data center products to meet "surging demand" for them.
Last quarter, Nvidia's profit surged 26% to $2 billion, and sales rose 19% to $7.2 billion, each easily surpassing Wall Street analysts' forecasts. Nvidia's outlook for the current quarter was also significantly — about 50% — higher than analysts' predictions.
Nvidia's stock is up nearly 110% this year.
"There is not one better indicator around underlying AI demand going on ... than the foundational Nvidia story," said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush. "We view Nvidia at the core hearts and lungs of the AI revolution."
