Nvidia ( NVDA ) posted another blockbuster quarter on Wednesday as demand for artificial intelligence infrastructure pushed revenue, profit 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 provided stronger-than-expected guidance for the current quarter, forecasting revenue of about $91 billion.
Meanwhile, the company also moved to return more cash to shareholders. Nvidia’s board approved an additional $80 billion in share buybacks and raised its quarterly dividend to 25 cents per share. share from previously 1 cent.
However, despite the beats, positive outlook and shareholder returns, the stock was down about 1.5% at the time of the announcement. Investors likely looked beyond the quarter and into the potential challenges to growth opportunities for Nvidia as competition for AI chips continued to grow.
Bitcoin miners with exposure to AI and high-performance computing infrastructure traded modestly higher after Nvidia’s earnings report. Shares of Core Scientific (CORZ) and Cipher Mining (CIFR) each rose slightly in after-hours trading as investors continued to see some miners as potential beneficiaries of growing demand for data centers, power capacity and AI computing infrastructure. IREN (IREN), which rose at the beginning, has fallen around 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 has arrived, is doing productive work, generating real value and scaling rapidly across businesses and industries,” he added.
Data center growth
Specifically for bitcoin miners moving toward the data center business, there was some positive news in the chipmaker’s earnings.
Nvidia’s data center business continued to drive growth as cloud providers, enterprises and governments expanded 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, CFO 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 AI cloud revenue has more than tripled from a year earlier 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 assumes no data center computing revenue from China, where US 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 companies will turn those investments into profits.
So far, Nvidia’s results suggest that demand continues to exceed expectations, which could be positive for data center providers.
