The results for the first quarter of fiscal 2027, ending April 26, marked an 85% jump from the same period a year ago and a 20% rise from the prior quarter, underscoring Nvidia’s status as the primary beneficiary of a global AI infrastructure buildout.
Net profit surged to US$58.3 billion, more than tripling from US$18.8 billion in the year-earlier period.
Nvidia’s data centre business, which sells the processors powering AI systems at tech giants and technology companies worldwide, was the engine behind the quarter’s performance.
Data centre revenue, which includes Nvidia’s key graphics processing units (GPUs), hit a record US$75.2 billion, up 92% from a year ago.
A GPU is a specialised computer chip originally designed to render video game graphics at high speed, but Nvidia has since made it the engine powering artificial intelligence.
That pivot has made Nvidia the world’s most valuable company, on the back of huge demand for its AI hardware.
Demand for Nvidia products seems insatiable despite recurring talk on Wall Street that the AI spending spree could come to a halt.
Since its February earnings report, Nvidia has disclosed a US$10 billion investment in Anthropic, a major deal with Meta spanning millions of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, and a CoreWeave commitment targeting five gigawatts of AI factories by 2030.
Crucially, Nvidia said it was not assuming any data centre revenue from China in its outlook, where its core product has been caught up in a geopolitical dispute between Beijing and Washington.
Nvidia boss Jensen Huang this week said he expected China to eventually open its market to high-end US chips that can train and run artificial intelligence systems.
The superpowers are in a fierce race for AI supremacy, and Nvidia’s H200 chip had until recently been barred from sale in China by Washington over national security concerns.
However, there is no sign that Chinese tech companies are buying them, as Beijing ramps up domestic chip development in a bid to challenge US dominance in the sector.