To put it simply, Nvidia used to be a company that mainly relied on selling graphics cards, and it was well-known in hardcore PC gamer circles. But now, it has transformed into a big name in the field of artificial intelligence, with a value close to that of giants such as Apple and Microsoft, and it can be said that it will be the new star of the technology industry in the next decade.
Just last Friday, Nvidia's market capitalization soared to $2 trillion because of its impressive performance, securing the position of the third most valuable technology company in the United States, behind Apple and Microsoft. After the release of its earnings report, it was a boom, and even the S&P 500 index broke through the 5,000-point mark, setting a new all-time high.
Recently, Nvidia announced its fourth-quarter results for fiscal 2024 that left analysts dumbfounded: revenue reached $22.1 billion, up 22% from the previous quarter and up 265% year-on-year, far exceeding expectations of 204$100 million. And this quarter alone earned more money than the whole of the previous year! Net profit also reached an eye-popping $12.3 billion, a year-on-year increase of 769%!
The data center business is the main part of their money, with revenue of $18.4 billion in that quarter, a year-on-year growth rate of 409%, and more than the experts' 172$100 million. Nvidia itself explains that this surge in data center growth is largely due to generative AI and the associated surge in training demand. Their chief financial officer, Kresss, revealed that about 40% of data center revenue in the past year has come from AI applications.
Founder and CEO Jensen Huang excitedly said that accelerated computing and generative AI have now reached an explosive stage, and enterprises, industries and even countries around the world are frantically pursuing these technologies, which shows that Nvidia is leading the way in related products and services.
A senior analyst named Dan Ives also said that NVIDIA's brilliant financial report and positive outlook further prove that the artificial intelligence revolution has just started and has not yet reached its peak, which is a rare major moment in the technology industry for many years. He mentioned that large companies including Microsoft, Google's parent company Alphabet, Meta (that is, Facebook), Amazon, etc., have recently said that they want to invest more money in artificial intelligence.
In the future, 60%-70% of enterprises will embrace AI applications, and it is expected that enterprise spending on generative AI alone will increase by $1 trillion in the next decade, not to mention the wave of AI in the consumer sector led by those tech giants.