NVIDIA Q1 Revenue Climbs 85% Amid Agentic AI Proliferation

The AI boom has handed record growth to NVIDIA that blew past Wall Street expectations for its Q1 2026 results announced on 20 May.

The chipmaker reported a net income of US$58.32bn or US$2.39 per share in the February to April quarter – a massive gain compared with US$18.78bn or US$0.76 per share in the same period of 2025.

Revenue climbed 85% to US$81.62bn from US$44.01bn year on year.

The results reflected continued demand for the company's AI accelerators and data centre infrastructure components.

"The largest infrastructure expansion in human history"

Jensen Huang, Chief Executive Officer at NVIDIA, described current market dynamics in the earnings statement: "The buildout of AI factories – the largest infrastructure expansion in human history – is accelerating at extraordinary speed."

He highlighted the deployment of agentic AI systems across commercial applications: "Agentic AI has arrived, doing productive work, generating real value and scaling rapidly across companies and industries."

Being the world's most valuable company by market valuation, NVIDIA currently holds a US$5.4tn market cap and supplies AI infrastructure components to Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet.

Data centre revenue reaches record

Numerous US technology companies are planning approximately US$750bn in AI infrastructure investments this year – a substantial portion of which will be allocated to AI accelerators for data centre operations.

Jensen stated that he expects NVIDIA's growth trajectory to outpace the capital expenditure rates of hyperscale data centre operators.

The company derives most of its revenue from data centre operations, which has brough the company a whopping  US$75.2bn in revenue during the quarter.

This represents a 92% growth year on year and cementing a new quarterly record for this business segment.

The company faces some competition in semiconductor development from Amazon and Google, which are developing custom chips for their own infrastructure needs.

Ben Barringer, Head of Technology Research at Quilter Cheviot, provided analysis of NVIDIA's market position: "While NVIDIA focuses primarily on GPUs, it remains the biggest player in CPUs (Central Processing Units), dwarfing AMD and Intel with US$20bn of sales in CPU."

Trade negotiations continue with China

Jensen joined President Trump and other US executives on a trip to China on 13 May to discuss economic arrangements between the two nations. 

Jensen has expressed interest in expanding NVIDIA's operations in the Chinese market, although it remains unclear whether Chinese government officials will permit imports of American AI technology.

The Trump administration approved NVIDIA's H200 AI chip exports to China back in December 2025.

The arrangement includes a 25% fee collected by the US government on each sale.

Jensen discussed market access prospects in an 18 May interview with Bloomberg: "The Chinese government has to decide: how much of their local market do they want to protect?

"My sense is that over time the market will open."

NVIDIA stated in its earnings materials that it does not currently anticipate data centre compute revenue from China.

Colette Kress, Chief Financial Officer at NVIDIA, addressed the situation during the 20 May earnings call.

Colette confirmed the company has not generated revenue from chip sales to China and says import permissions remain uncertain.

President Trump has approved chip sales but stated that Xi Jinping blocked the imports.

Next-generation platform in development

NVIDIA is quickly developing Vera Rubin – a next-generation AI system platform scheduled for release in the second half of 2026.

The company describes the platform as a "generational leap" in AI infrastructure capabilities.

NVIDIA characterised Vera Rubin as technology that will drive what it calls "the greatest infrastructure buildout in history".

Jensen provided demand forecasts during the earnings call: "My sense is we will be supply-constrained throughout the entire life of Vera Rubin."