That was ahead of predictions of $43.3bn in revenue and the company also reported $39.1bn in data centre revenue, which was up 73% on this time last year.
Nvidia is often seen as bellwether for the business of artificial intelligence, and while it beat expectations it did so in a far more challenging market environment.
The company has had to contend with China export restrictions and is now facing mounting competitive pressure from rivals like AMD.
In a statement Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said, “Global demand for Nvidia’s AI infrastructure is incredibly strong. Countries around the world are recognising AI as essential infrastructure – just like electricity and the internet – and Nvidia stands at the centre of this profound transformation.”
Huang said that the company expects to see revenues of $45bn in the second quarter of fiscal year 2026.
While Nvidia has seen remarkably strong growth in recent years it has taken a considerable hit from the Trump Administration’s announcement that it was tightening export rules on computer chips which has effectively banned Nvidia from selling its H20 AI chips to China.
As a result, Nvidia said that it expects to miss out on $8bn in revenue in the second quarter and Huang warned that missing out on the potential $50bn AI market in China would risk US leadership in the global AI infrastructure race.
“China is one of the world’s largest AI markets and a springboard to global success,” Huang said on the earnings call. “It has the compute to train or deploy an advanced model. The question is not whether China will have AI – it already does. The question is whether one of the world’s largest AI markets will run on American chips.”
The company said that it had also been affected by charges associated with excess inventory destined for the Chinese market worth billions of dollars.
“No company in history has ever written off that much inventory,” Huang said. “Not only am I losing $5.5bn – we wrote off $5.5bn – we walked away from $15bn of sales.”
Many analysts were encouraged, however, by the company’s ability to deliver a ‘robust’ quarter despite trade headwinds and welcomed the company’s adaptability to manage changing market conditions - pointing to growing sales in markets like UAE and Saudi Arabia.
