‘The race is on’ for AI: Nvidia CEO bullish as Q2 revenue tops estimates

Shares of computer chip manufacturer Nvidia soared nearly 10% in after-hours trading as surging demand for AI chips saw the firm post Q2 earnings that significantly beat Wall Street estimates.

In its Q2 earnings report, the company posted a whopping $13.5 billion in revenue for the quarter — an 88% increase from Q1. The revenue figure came in at over $2 billion more than the $11.2 billion that analysts had predicted for the company.

Additionally, Nvidia reported $2.48 earnings per share (EPS), which surpassed consensus analyst estimates of $2.08, according to data from Google Finance. The company’s Q2 EPS was up a staggering 854% year-over-year.

“A new computing era has begun. Companies worldwide are transitioning from general-purpose to accelerated computing and generative AI,” NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement.

The race is on to adopt generative AI,” Huang added.

While competitors such as Intel and Micron Technologies have continued to focus the bulk of their efforts on manufacturing chips for existing services such as data centers and cloud computing, Nvidia has honed in research and development for chips and graphics card units that power AI systems, allowing it to capitalize significantly on the recent AI boom.

Related: UK to spend $130M on AI chips amid scramble to buy up computing power

Looking forward, the company predicted that revenue would grow to $16 billion by Q3 this year — suggesting a 170% increase year-over-year. 

In the last 10 months, Nvidia’s share price has ballooned by more than 300%, causing its market capitalization to top $1.16 trillion at the time of publication, according to data from Google Finance.

The rapid growth has seen Nvidia join an exclusive club of just six companies — Apple, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Alphabet (Google) and Amazon — to top a trillion-dollar valuation.

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