Nvidia's Q4 revenue up 78%, showing its AI boom is far from dead

When Nvidia lost US$600 billion (S$802.9 billion) in market value in a single day in January, it was because some investors feared for the future of the artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker.

- Tripp Mickle

SAN FRANCISCO — When Nvidia lost US$600 billion (S$802.9 billion) in market value in a single day in January, it was because some investors feared for the future of the artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaker. DeepSeek, a Chinese start-up, said it had made its AI systems with a small fraction of the AI chips used by other companies, and at a small fraction of the cost.

On Feb 26, Nvidia showed those fears were overblown, even as the breakneck pace of its growth slows.

The company, a bellwether for AI, said purchases of its AI chips lifted its total revenue in the fourth quarter by 78 per cent from a year earlier to US$39.33 billion during the three months that ended in January. Profit rose 80 per cent to US$22.09 billion.

In previous quarters, Nvidia reported that sales and profits had more than doubled. But continuing to deliver those kinds of gains has become more difficult as its sales and profits rise. (For a business like Nvidia, it is common for the growth rate to slow after a period of extraordinary increases, a phenomenon known as the law of large numbers.) Nvidia's quarterly results exceeded Wall Street analysts' expectations for US$38.32 billion in sales and US$21.08 billion in profit.