Nvidia’s Earnings Show Why the World’s AI Market Boom May Not Be Over

Nvidia’s latest earnings have reinforced its standing as the world’s most influential artificial intelligence (AI) company.

More importantly, the results sent a signal to markets that the global AI boom might not be overhyped and could still have quite some way to run.

The American chipmaker reported quarterly revenue of $57 billion, beating expectations by $3 billion. The share price rose more than 4% after the announcement.

Its core business, which builds the bulk of the chips used for global data centres, produced revenue of $51 billion, an increase of 66% from a year ago.

These numbers matter because Nvidia has become the main nexus point for the entire AI boom at a time when doubts had been swirling about whether the industry was overhyped and overinvested. With talk of a possible AI bubble, any sign of a slowdown raises concerns that the enormous valuations of technology companies tied to AI may be more fragile than they appear.

Given those concerns, investors treat each Nvidia earnings call as a test of whether the surge in interest around AI is built on real demand or inflated expectations. Yesterday’s results suggest the momentum is real.

Its influence comes not only from its hardware but from its deep integration with the world’s biggest cloud platforms. Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta all run massive server farms built on Nvidia chips.

At the centre of Nvidia’s business is the Blackwell Ultra Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), the company’s most advanced and best-selling chip. These GPUs are in extraordinary demand. A single chip costs $30 000 to $40 000, and a large data centre can house hundreds of thousands of these GPUs. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, says the company already has $500 billion in GPU orders for 2025 and 2026.

By way of comparison, that number is equivalent to South Africa’s GDP.

Nvidia’s reach is also becoming more visible in Africa. The company has taken an equity stake in Cassava Technologies, the pan-African infrastructure group founded by Strive Masiyiwa, a Zimbabwean billionaire who made his fortune in telecommunications. This follows an earlier deal to supply Cassava with GPUs and marks Nvidia’s first direct infrastructure commitment on the continent. Cassava operates a large network of African data centres and has control over an extensive fibre-optic footprint.

Nvidia is set to supply Cassava with over 12 000 GPUs over the next four years, of which 3 000 are set to be deployed in South Africa.