Nvidia surges after AI computing push drives upbeat outlook

NVIDIA jumped after giving a bullish revenue outlook for the current quarter, suggesting that a push into artificial intelligence (AI) processors is helping offset sluggish demand for personal computer chips.

“When you have ‘the next big thing’ in tech, it’s natural for investors to scramble to find ways to play the theme,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. “Nvidia’s involvement in the AI space now puts it directly under the spotlight.”

The stock rose 13 per cent in early New York trading on Thursday (Feb 23), the biggest intraday advance since November. If the gain holds, Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia would be on track to add about US$64.3 billion in market value, taking its year-to-date gains to about US$214 billion.

The forecast signals that Nvidia’s foray into AI computing chips is paying off. Under chief executive officer and co-founder Jensen Huang, the company has parlayed its dominance of graphics processors into a strong position in the growing market for AI hardware. Its chips excel at the kind of parallel processing that allows computers to make sense of large amounts of data and train software to make decisions.

Sales in the three months ending in April will be about US$6.5 billion, Nvidia said in a statement on Wednesday. That compares with an average of analysts’ estimates of US$6.35 billion, according to data complied by Bloomberg.

Nvidia also announced its own AI cloud service on Wednesday. The company is teaming up with Oracle, Microsoft and Alphabet’s Google to offer the ability to use Nvidia GTX machines to do AI processing via simple browser access, Huang said. The new platform, which will be carried by other cloud service providers, will help companies that don’t have the technical expertise to build their own infrastructure.

The interest in ChatGPT has opened the eyes of business leaders to the power of artificial intelligence, Huang said in an interview. But right now, it’s mostly general-purpose software. The value will come from tailoring it to companies’ own needs so they can improve their services and products, he said.

“It’s a wake-up moment for the capabilities of AI,” he said. “The challenge is there is no such thing as one AI model for everyone. This is really where we can be of great value for the industry.”

The shares have already been the best performer in the Philadelphia Stock Exchange Semiconductor Index this year, gaining 42 per cent. Investors have piled into Nvidia – making it the world’s most valuable chipmaker again – as they bet that demand for AI systems such as ChatGPT will boost orders for the company’s products.

Nvidia’s dependence on the PC market for a large chunk of sales still dragged on its results last quarter, though not as much as feared. Computer makers have been slashing chip orders in an attempt to work through stockpiles of unused inventory.

The company’s gaming business – heavily reliant on the PC industry – had revenue of US$1.83 billion last quarter, a decline of 46 per cent. Still, it topped the average estimate of US$1.6 billion.

Data-centre sales grew 11 per cent to US$3.62 billion, coming in short of an average prediction of US$3.86 billion.

Overall revenue fell 21 per cent to US$6.05 billion, marking Nvidia’s second decline in 13 quarters. Profit was 88 cents a share, minus certain items. On that basis, analysts had predicted a profit of 81 cents on sales of about US$6 billion. BLOOMBERG