Nvidia Stock Soars as Q3 Earnings Beat Expectations and AI Chip Sales Surge

Nvidia (NVDA) surged more than 5% after reporting third-quarter results that exceeded Wall Street expectations on both revenue and earnings. The chipmaker also issued a bullish fourth-quarter forecast, pointing to unstoppable demand for its AI processors.

For Q4, Nvidia expects revenue of $65 billion ±2%, beating analyst projections of $62 billion. CEO Jensen Huang credited unprecedented demand for the company’s newest AI architecture.

“Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out,” Huang said. “AI is going everywhere, doing everything, all at once.”

Q3 Earnings Blow Past Estimates

Nvidia posted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.30 on revenue of $57.01 billion, topping analyst expectations of $1.26 EPS and $55.2 billion in revenue. Last year, the company logged EPS of $0.81 on $35.1 billion in revenue.

The company’s critical data center division — which produces the GPUs driving global AI expansion — generated $51.2 billion, beating estimates of $49.3 billion.

Nvidia’s long-standing gaming segment contributed $4.3 billion, slightly under the projected $4.4 billion.

AI Boom Accelerates as Blackwell Ultra Leads Demand

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said the company’s new Blackwell Ultra architecture has already become its flagship across all customer categories. The previous Blackwell generation continues to see heavy demand as well.

Kress also noted that revenue from the China-specific H20 chip was “insignificant.”

AI Rally Lifts Tech Stocks

Nvidia’s earnings report boosted shares of other AI-linked companies, including:

• AMD – up nearly 4%
• Micron (MU) – up more than 3%
• Meta, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft – all slightly higher after hours

The report comes after Nvidia’s market cap briefly surpassed $5 trillion last month, solidifying its position as the world’s most valuable chipmaker.

Major Investors Trim Positions Ahead of Earnings

Despite Nvidia’s long-term climb, several major investors reduced exposure in recent weeks:

• Peter Thiel’s hedge fund sold its entire ~$100 million Nvidia stake
• SoftBank Group unloaded $5.8 billion worth of shares to help fund new AI investments

Meanwhile, AMD CEO Lisa Su forecast that the data center AI market could reach $1 trillion by 2030 — highlighting long-term demand for accelerated computing.

Nvidia Counters Criticism Over Data Center Depreciation

Investor Michael Burry recently claimed that major tech firms, including Nvidia customers like Meta and Oracle, were overstating earnings by underreporting data center depreciation.

On the earnings call, Kress pushed back, saying Nvidia GPUs maintain long operational life thanks to ongoing CUDA software updates. She noted that even six-year-old A100 GPUs remain in active use.

Stock Performance

Nvidia shares are up more than 37% year-to-date and 25% over the past 12 months. AMD has gained 82% YTD and 58% over the same period.