Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA, XETRA:NVD) has once again delivered the numbers global markets were hoping for — and perhaps a little more.
The AI chip giant reported record fourth-quarter revenue of US$68.1 billion for the period ended January 25, 2026, up 20% on the previous quarter and 73% year-on-year. For the full fiscal year, revenue surged 65% to US$215.9 billion, underlining the scale of the AI infrastructure buildout now under way.
The result landed after a tech-led rally on Wall Street, with investors positioning for a strong print. Nvidia did not disappoint.
Data centre demand still accelerating
The engine remains Nvidia’s Data Center division, which posted record quarterly revenue of US$62.3 billion, up 22% quarter-on-quarter and 75% year-on-year. Full-year Data Center revenue climbed 68% to US$193.7 billion.
Gross margins stayed elevated at 75% for the quarter, while GAAP net income almost doubled year-on-year to US$42.96 billion. Diluted earnings per share came in at US$1.76 on a GAAP basis and US$1.62 on a non-GAAP basis.
Just as importantly, guidance pointed higher. Nvidia expects first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of around US$78.0 billion, plus or minus 2% — ahead of market expectations — with gross margins around 75%. Notably, the outlook excludes any Data Center compute revenue from China, highlighting the strength of demand elsewhere.
CEO Jensen Huang declared that “the agentic AI inflection point has arrived”, pointing to accelerating enterprise adoption and the shift from training to inference at scale.
In effect, the company is positioning the current cycle as one driven less by hype and more by enterprise implementation.
From experimentation to deployment
That shift is central to how investors are interpreting the result.
Cameron McCormack, Senior Portfolio Manager at VanEck, said the market has largely moved on from the “AI bubble” debate and is now pricing in the durability of the spend cycle.
“Nvidia’s latest result reinforces that AI infrastructure is shifting from experimentation to deployment. We are seeing real enterprise adoption across platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude, and that drives a longer runway for compute demand than many expect,” McCormack said.
He pointed to durable themes across GPUs, semiconductor manufacturing, networking hardware, data centres and hyperscalers — areas that have continued to perform despite periodic concerns about AI software disruption.
McCormack also highlighted valuation.
“Nvidia is trading around the mid-20s on forward earnings, near its five-year historical average, and remarkably at a lower multiple than Australia’s largest listed company, CBA. The difference is Nvidia is still delivering high-double-digit earnings growth at a high margin,” he said.
Cash generation and capital returns
Beyond revenue growth, Nvidia’s cash engine remains formidable. The company generated US$36.2 billion in operating cash flow in the quarter and US$102.7 billion for the full year, while returning US$41.1 billion to shareholders during fiscal 2026 through buybacks and dividends.
It ended the quarter with US$62.6 billion in cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, giving it significant flexibility as it invests in next-generation platforms such as Grace Blackwell and the forthcoming Vera Rubin architecture.
Market reaction at home and abroad
Shares in Nvidia were trading around US$195.62, up 1.44% on the Wednesday session and jumping as much as 3% immediately after the post-close release, and have gained more than 54% over the past year.
The result followed a tech-led session on Wall Street overnight, and the ripple effect was felt locally. The ASX 200 briefly crossed the 9,200 mark in early trade before easing back, while the S&P/ASX 200 Tech Index surged more than 4% by Thursday afternoon, led by gains in heavyweight names including Xero Inc (ASX:XRO), up 7.7% as of 2:30pm, and WiseTech Global, which rose more than 3%.
According to McCormack, there is still more room for Nvidia’s stock to run.
“Even with the post-market rally, we see further upside potential for Nvidia and the broader AI complex,” he said. “Strong market reaction to Nvidia’s results highlights the still underappreciated value in companies at the forefront of supporting the ‘AI ecosystem’.”