Nvidia’s forecast points to accelerating growth, as Vera Rubin starts hitting market

Nvidia just reported its 11th straight quarter of revenue growth above 55% as the leading tech names keep snapping up the company’s AI chips. Already the world’s most valuable public company, growth is now reaccelerating.

In its earnings report Wednesday, Nvidia said year-over-year revenue will surge about 77% this quarter to roughly $78 billion. That would mark the fastest growth rate for any period since the quarter ending January 2025, when expansion came in slightly higher at 78%. Its forecast sailed past the $72.6 billion average analyst estimate, according to LSEG.

Revenue in the fourth quarter jumped 73%, also topping estimates, following expansion of 62% in the prior period. The data center business, home to Nvidia’s AI graphics processing units, now accounts for over 91% of sales.

The chipmaker’s optimistic outlook comes as the company ramps production of Vera Rubin, its next rack-scale system for AI that will succeed Grace Blackwell. Nvidia says the system’s 72 next-generation Rubin graphics processing units (GPUs) are expected to deliver 10 times more performance per watt, compared to their predecessors.

Finance chief Colette Kress said on the earnings call after the report that the company shipped its “first Vera Rubin samples to customers earlier this week,” and that Nvidia expects every model builder and cloud provider to eventually deploy the system. She said the company now expects growth this year to exceed what was included in the company’s projection last year for a $500 billion revenue opportunity between Blackwell and Rubin.

“We believe we have inventory and supply commitments in place to address future demand, including shipments extending into calendar 2027,” Kress said.

Nvidia’s shares were little changed in extended trading after initially popping, reflecting investors’ lofty expectations for the company, which is valued at almost $5 trillion thanks to its dominance in AI processors.

There’s competition on the horizon, as smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices is set to release Helios, its first rack-scale system for AI, later this year. Earlier this week, Meta committed to deploying up to 6 gigawatts of AMD GPUs, with Helios shipments starting in 2026.

Nvidia also faces challenges from some of its biggest customers — namely Amazon and Google — making in-house AI chips to power their data centers. In its annual filing, Nvidia said a potential risk to future results is that “customers develop their own internal solution.”

Looking beyond fiscal 2027, growth is expected to slow dramatically, from 63% this year to 30%, 11.5% and 3% in the three subsequent years, according to LSEG.

But for now, Nvidia’s growth is far outpacing any of its competitors or peers as tech giants and AI model developers race to build out their infrastructure to meet soaring demand.

“In this new world of AI, compute equals revenues,” CEO Jensen Huang said on Wednesday’s earnings call. He repeated the phrase and variations of it several times during the call, in reference to the speedy adoption of agentic AI, which goes beyond early generative AI by allowing businesses to create and run applications with text prompts.

Anthropic’s Claude Cowork has quickly taken off in the enterprise by plugging into more applications. And earlier this month, OpenAI hired OpenClaw developer Peter Steinberger after his tool surged in popularity by automating tasks such as managing emails and calendars, browsing the web and interacting with online services.

“Between Claude Cowork and OpenClaw, compute demand is skyrocketing, and the ChatGPT moment of agentic AI has arrived,” Huang said on the call.

Not included in Nvidia’s first-quarter forecast is any potential data center revenue from China. A lack of clarity around export controls has kept Nvidia from selling into the world’s second-largest economy, even after President Donald Trump said in January that his administration would approve China sales of Nvidia’s H200 chip, with the U.S. government taking 25% of sales.

Huang said in May that China’s AI market would likely reach about $50 billion within two to three years, and that missing out on it would be a “tremendous loss.” It’s an opportunity that hasn’t yet opened up.

“While small amounts of H200 products for China-based customers were approved by the U.S. government, we have yet to generate any revenue and we do not know whether any imports will be allowed into China,” Kress said on the call. “We are not assuming any data center compute revenue from China in our outlook.”

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