This week, all of Wall Street felt like it was sitting on hot coals.
Everyone was waiting for one thing: Nvidia’s earnings.
Let’s be honest. If there is one company carrying the entire artificial intelligence narrative on its shoulders, it is Nvidia. The question was simple: does the AI party continue, or are we starting to see signs of fatigue?
Yesterday, after the market closed, Nvidia released its results.
Not only did it avoid disappointing… it blew past expectations.
THE EARNINGS
For the fourth quarter, Nvidia reported earnings of $1.62 per share, while analysts were expecting roughly $1.53 to $1.54.
Revenue came in at $68.13 billion, exceeding estimates of around $66 billion. That represents 73% year over year growth. Yes, seventy three percent.
Net income nearly doubled, rising from $22.1 billion last year to $43 billion this year. Gross margin stood at approximately 75%, while free cash flow reached $34.9 billion in just one quarter.
These are not simply strong numbers. They reflect outright dominance.
What is even more striking is not just the scale, but the breakdown.
More than 90% of Nvidia’s revenue now comes from data centers. In that segment alone, revenue reached about $62 billion, comfortably beating expectations. The company has effectively transformed into an AI infrastructure powerhouse.
And this is not just about GPUs. Networking components, the systems that link hundreds of processors together into massive AI clusters, surged 263% year over year, reaching nearly $11 billion.
So who is buying all of this?
The hyperscalers. The tech giants building data centers around the world. According to estimates, they could invest close to $700 billion this year alone in AI infrastructure.
And Nvidia is the primary supplier behind those investments.
As Jensen Huang described it, we are now at an “agentic AI inflection point.” In plain terms, we are no longer in the experimentation phase. We have entered full scale industrial deployment.
There were a few minor weak spots. Gaming revenue, although up nearly 47% year over year to $3.7 billion, came in below expectations. The automotive segment, at $604 million, also fell short. And notably, for the upcoming quarter, the company does not expect any revenue from China.
But let’s be realistic. The story right now is not gaming GPUs. It is AI accelerators.
And here is the real headline.
For the next quarter, Nvidia issued guidance of $78 billion in revenue, plus or minus 2%. Analysts had been expecting roughly $72 to $73 billion. For a company of this size, that difference is substantial.
As expected, the market reacted immediately. The stock rose about 3% in after hours trading, and other companies in the sector moved higher as well.
INVESTING
We are living through a modern gold rush. Everyone wants AI. Everyone wants models, agents, automation, productivity gains.
But every gold rush has one rule.
When everyone is digging for gold, be the one selling the shovels.
That is exactly what Nvidia is doing. It is not selling apps. It is not selling promises. It is selling the infrastructure and the tools. It is selling the shovels of the AI revolution.
