Nvidia reported fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter revenue of $68.13 billion Wednesday evening, surpassing analyst estimates of $66.21 billion and marking 73% growth from $39.3 billion the previous year, as demand for AI chips continued surging despite investor concerns about infrastructure spending sustainability and memory supply constraints. The chipmaker guided fiscal 2027 first-quarter revenue to $78 billion plus or minus 2%, also exceeding Wall Street expectations.
Earnings per share reached $1.62 adjusted, beating the $1.53 estimate and representing 82% year-over-year growth. The stock initially surged 3.5% in after-market trading within 10 minutes of results posting, extending gains after rising 1.4% during Wednesday's regular session. Nvidia shares are up 5% in 2026, outperforming all megacap peers as the sole beneficiary of the AI infrastructure boom.
Data Center Dominance Intensifies
Data center revenue hit a record $62.3 billion for the quarter, up 75% year-over-year and 22% sequentially, now representing over 91% of total company sales. Hyperscalers—Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft—remained Nvidia's largest customer category, accounting for just over 50% of data center revenue.
The concentration reflects Big Tech's massive AI infrastructure buildout. Based on their capital expenditure forecasts reported in recent earnings, combined capex for the four hyperscalers could approach $700 billion in 2026, up from roughly $410 billion in 2025 according to Bridgewater Associates estimates.
CFO Colette Kress stated in her commentary that data center growth was driven by "major platform shifts—accelerated computing and artificial intelligence," with gross profit margin reaching 75.2% versus a forecast of 75%.
Memory Constraints Emerge as Headwind
Nvidia warned that global memory shortages will constrain its gaming business "in the first quarter of fiscal 2027 and beyond." Gaming unit revenue grew 47% year-over-year to $3.7 billion but fell 13% sequentially from the previous quarter.
Memory has become an area of investor concern as AI accelerators require massive amounts of high-bandwidth memory. Nvidia prioritizes memory allocation toward AI processors like the 72-GPU Grace Blackwell rack-scale systems rather than gaming GPUs. Analysts speculate Nvidia may skip launching new gaming GPUs this year due to these constraints.
Vera Rubin Samples Ship, Supply Chain Expansion
Kress revealed Wednesday that Nvidia "shipped our first Vera Rubin samples to customers earlier this week, and we remain on track" for the next-generation rack-scale system launch later this year. Vera Rubin succeeds Grace Blackwell as Nvidia's latest flagship AI infrastructure platform, and investor excitement has been building for the release.
Nvidia disclosed in its financial filing that the company is expanding manufacturing capabilities beyond traditional partners to strengthen supply chain resilience and meet growing AI infrastructure demand. "These moves are expected to strengthen our supply chain, add resiliency and redundancy, and meet the growing demand for AI infrastructure," the filing stated. "Our ability to increase manufacturing capabilities will depend on the local region's manufacturing ecosystem's capacity to ramp production supply to the required volume and on a timely basis."
Mixed Performance Across Segments
Professional visualization business reported revenue of $1.32 billion for the quarter, up 159% year-over-year and significantly ahead of analyst expectations of $755.4 million according to StreetAccount.
Automotive revenue, which includes chips for cars and robots, reached $604 million, up 6% year-over-year but below analyst expectations of $654.8 million.
CEO Jensen Huang will join Kress on the earnings call at 5 PM ET to discuss results and AI infrastructure outlook. James Demmert, chief investment officer at Main Street Research, noted the results came at an opportune time "as investors were extremely hungry for confirmation that AI is still a positive storyline for stocks, and Nvidia's blowout earnings did just that."
The report temporarily eased investor concerns about whether AI infrastructure spending can sustain current levels through 2026.
