Nvidia has once again posted record-breaking numbers, but the shine from its earnings was dulled by a revenue wobble in a key segment and ongoing challenges in China.
For the second quarter, the chipmaker reported $46.7 billion in revenue, representing a 56% jump from the same period last year. Net income also surged to $26.4 billion, up 59% year-on-year.
The results, which is more than the initial projection, reveal just how much the company has become the backbone of the artificial intelligence growth.
Data centre sales, the largest driver of growth, pulled in $41.1 billion, with the new Blackwell generation of chips accounting for $27 billion alone. “Blackwell is the AI platform the world has been waiting for,” CEO Jensen Huang said. “The AI race is on, and Blackwell is the platform at its centre.”
Huang spoke on his long-term outlook, projecting a $3 to $4 trillion wave of AI infrastructure spending by 2030. “$3 to 4 trillion is fairly sensible for the next five years,” he told analysts on the call.
Beyond the financials, Nvidia underlined its central role in OpenAI’s release of open-source gpt-oss models earlier this month, noting that its Blackwell GB200 NVL72 rack system processed 1.5 million tokens per second during the launch.
However, not all markets are open doors, as the company admitted that it sold zero units of its China-focused H20 chip in the past quarter. Instead, $650 million worth of those devices went to a buyer outside China.
The lack of shipments comes from a murky U.S. policy under President Trump, which currently allows Nvidia to sell advanced GPUs to China if it pays a 15% export tax. Legal scholars have criticised the arrangement as an “unconstitutional abuse of power.”
Nvidia’s Chief Financial Officer, Colette Kress, stressed the company’s hesitation: “While a select number of our China-based customers have received licences over the past few weeks, we have not shipped any H20 devices based on those licences.”
Adding to the issue, Beijing has discouraged local firms from using Nvidia’s chips, a move that reportedly pushed the company to halt production of the H20 earlier this month.
In future plans, Nvidia has guided for $54 billion in revenue in the third quarter, though it warned that figure does not include any Chinese shipments. The guidance was broadly in line with Wall Street expectations, but fell short of more bullish analyst forecasts of over $60 billion.
Despite the blockbuster earnings and the announcement of a $60 billion stock buyback, Nvidia’s shares slid about 3% in post-market trading.
The dip reflected disappointment over a narrow miss in data centre revenue, a segment that investors have been watching closely as a proxy for the strength of the AI boom.
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