Nvidia quarterly profit soars on demand for AI chips
Nvidia on Wednesday said its profit soared to US$12.3 billion in the recently ended quarter on record-high revenue driven by demand for its chips to power artificial intelligence. The Silicon Valley chip titan reported profit of US$12.3 billion on record revenue of US$22.1 billion in the quarter than ended late January and record high revenue of US$60.9 billion for the fiscal year. Profit in the same quarter a year ago was US$1.4 billion, while revenue in the same three-month period a year earlier was US$6 billion, the company said. "Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point," Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said during an earnings call. "Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations." Nvidia shares shot up more than eight percent to US$732.99 in after-market trade that followed the release of the earnings results. "The AI Revolution starts with Nvidia and in our view the AI party is just getting started," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors. Wedbush expects 60 percent or more of businesses to "head down the AI use case path" in the coming decade, spending an estimated trillion dollars on the technology, according to Ives. Money taken in by the Nvidia unit specialising in data centre computing hit a record of US$18.4 billion in the quarter, more than quadruple the amount from the same period a year earlier, according to Nvidia. "Our Data Centre platform is powered by increasingly diverse drivers," Huang said. "Vertical industries – led by auto, financial services and healthcare – are now at a multibillion-dollar level." The company said it expects total revenue of US$24 billion in the current quarter. (AFP)