After a week that bordered on an AI panic attack, Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, XETRA:NVD)’s latest results have landed — and for now, they’ve helped steady a tech sector that’s been wobbling at the knees.
The trouble started on Wall Street, where big US tech names including were hit by brisk selling as investors pulled exposure from anything AI-adjacent. The Nasdaq fell for several sessions running, deepening fears that the AI trade had become too crowded and too fragile. That damage extended into local markets, with the ASX 200 hitting multiple 100-day lows and shedding around 4% across five sessions. Information technology was among the hardest-hit sectors, and traders showed little appetite to buy the dip.
This morning, Nvidia flipped the tone back again.
A make-or-break earnings print
Heading into the release, options markets were pricing a near-historic swing — around 7% in either direction, or roughly US$300–320 billion of market cap — underscoring how much of the broader AI trade hinges on one company’s outlook.
The numbers easily cleared the bar. Nvidia posted US$57 billion in quarterly revenue, up 62% year-on-year and 22% quarter-on-quarter, with diluted earnings per share (EPS) of US$1.30. Data centre sales — the core of Nvidia’s AI story — hit a record US$51.2 billion, up 66% year-on-year and 25% sequentially. Guidance was equally strong: management expects US$65 billion in revenue next quarter, with mid-70% gross margins.
After-hours trade responded immediately, sending the stock up more than 4% and setting the tone for global markets before the Asian open.
Huang pushes back on AI bubble talk
Much of the recent volatility has been about bubble anxiety, and Jensen Huang addressed it head-on.
“Blackwell sales are off the charts, and cloud GPUs are sold out,” he said in Nvidia’s release. “Compute demand keeps accelerating and compounding across training and inference — each growing exponentially. We’ve entered the virtuous cycle of AI.”
On the earnings call, he went further: “There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble. From our vantage point, we see something very different. As a reminder, Nvidia is unlike any other accelerator. We excel at every phase of AI, from pre-training and post-training to inference.”
Still, the risks haven’t vanished. Nvidia’s revenue base is becoming more concentrated, with four hyperscale customers now representing around 61% of sales — up meaningfully from last quarter. Meanwhile, export restrictions, rising competition from custom silicon and sheer capex constraints remain live issues.
What it means for the ASX tech pocket
The result arrives at the end of a choppy and confidence-sapping run for Australian investors. The ASX 200 spent most of the week slipping to fresh 100-day lows, dragged by soft global leads and a steep selloff across tech, financials and defensives. Market breadth was weak. Sentiment was weaker.
Today’s trade looks different. The ASX 200 opened firmly higher and extended gains through the morning, buoyed by Nvidia’s beat and a strong rotation back into growth. The IT sector jumped in early action, with names like NEXTDC (ASX:NXT), WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX:WTC), TechnologyOne Ltd (ASX:TNE), Megaport Ltd (ASX:MP1) and Xero Inc (ASX:XRO) shifting from recent losses. The index remains down for the week, but the tone — for the first time in several days — is constructive.
For investors in local AI-exposed names, Nvidia’s result reinforces that the demand story remains intact. But this week has also underscored how closely parts of the ASX now shadow big tech’s fortunes. Pronounced swings in one US stock are increasingly dictating daily moves in a corner of the Australian market.
Optimism beyond Nvidia
There’s more going on in big tech than GPUs.
Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) has been the standout among US mega-caps this week, rising to record highs on enthusiasm for Gemini 3.0 and last week’s news that Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRK.A) has taken a stake. Shares were up more than 2.8% after Wednesday’s close after Loop Capital upgraded the company to a strong-buy rating.
Fintech also punched through the gloom. Afterpay parent Block Inc (NYSE:SQ) surged more than 12% after releasing a three-year outlook calling for mid-teens compound annual gross profit growth through 2028 and about 30% annual growth in adjusted operating income. The guidance helped stabilise sentiment across parts of the payments and digital-commerce cohort.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that Elon Musk and Jensen Huang are exploring a 500-megawatt data centre development in Saudi Arabia — a symbol of just how global, capital-intensive and geopolitically tangled the AI infrastructure build-out has become.
The big banks on Wall Street are treating the week’s volatility less as a red flag and more as a recalibration, with JPMorgan calling the selloff a “technical washout” and Goldman Sachs saying the AI boom still has “room to run”.
Nvidia, at least this morning, gives weight to that argument. The demand for AI infrastructure remains strong, even if the trade built around it is now prone to sharp reversals. For investors, the takeaway is the same as it’s been all year: AI is still the dominant force shaping global tech — but the volatility is here to stay.