AI boom sees earnings rocket at Nvidia

Shares in Nvidia sparked on Thursday, after the US chipmaker saw sales surge on booming demand for artificial intelligence.

Publishing results late on Wednesday, the firm said fourth-quarter revenues jumped 22% on the third quarter - or by 265% year-on-year - to a record $22.1bn. Wall Street had been expecting revenues of $20.4bn.

Earnings per diluted share also came in ahead of forecasts, rising 33% quarter-on-quarter to $4.93, or by 756% on an annual basis.

As at 1145 GMT, Nasdaq-listed Nvidia had put on 14% in pre-market trading.

Nvidia also struck an optimistic tone looking to the current year, forecasting first-quarter revenues of $24bn.

Jensen Huang, founder and chief executive, said: "Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point.

"Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations."

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: "Markets were braced for potential disappointment, given how its shares were weak in the run-up to the numbers, but a large beat on both earnings and sales has put a new rocket under the stock.

"The people who made the most money in the gold rush of the mid-1800s were the ones providing the tools to get the job done, not those hunting for the precious metal.

"Nvidia is effectively playing the same role today in this tech revolution.

"With so many businesses wanting the capability and processing to carry out AI-related tasks, demand has been booming for specialist computer chips and Nvidia is laughing all the way to the bank."

Nvidia, which was founded in 1993, started out making graphics cards for computer games. But in recent years its chips have become the industry standard for AI developers.