Chip giant Nvidia, currently recognized as the world’s most valuable company, recently announced record profits in its most recent quarter, primarily fueled by an exponential surge in demand for AI compute. CEO Jensen Huang highlighted the overwhelming demand for 'tokens' globally, noting that even six-year-old GPUs in the cloud are completely consumed and their pricing is escalating.

For the most recent quarter, Nvidia reported an impressive $68 billion in revenue, marking a 73% increase from the prior year. Of this, $62 billion was generated by the company’s robust data center business. The data center revenue was further delineated into $51 billion from compute, largely driven by GPUs, and $11 billion from networking products like NVLink. The company’s total revenue for the full year reached $215 billion.

Despite recent developments, Nvidia confirmed that it did not report any revenue from chip exports to China during this period. The company’s chief financial officer, Colette Kress, stated that while small amounts of H200 products intended for China-based customers received U.S. government approval, they have yet to generate any revenue, and the certainty of future imports remains unclear. Kress also acknowledged the progress of competitors in China, mentioning recent IPOs like Moore Threads, and suggested their potential to disrupt the global AI industry in the long term.

During the investor call, Huang also addressed the widely reported $30 billion pending investment in OpenAI, indicating that the company is nearing a partnership agreement. He also referenced ongoing partnerships with other prominent AI entities such as Anthropic, Meta, and Elon Musk’s xAI. However, statements filed by Nvidia with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on the same day emphasized that there was “no assurance” such an investment would ultimately materialize.

Furthermore, Huang provided insights into the sustainability of tech companies’ capital expenditure commitments in the AI era. He expressed confidence that these compute investments would soon translate into revenue. Articulating his vision, Huang stated, “In this new world of AI, compute is revenue. Without compute, there’s no way to generate tokens. Without tokens, there’s no way to grow revenues.” He concluded by asserting that the company has reached an 'inflection point', generating 'profitable tokens' that benefit both customers and cloud service providers.