What just happened? If there's one company that is really benefitting from the AI boom, it's Nvidia. Team Green has just revealed its second quarter 2024 fiscal year results and, despite the general slump in the technology industry, the firm broke several earnings records.
Nvidia's revenue for Q2 FY2024 came in at a massive $13.5 billion, marking a 101% increase compared to the same period one year earlier. Most of that amount ($10.32 billion) came from its data center-class GPUs used in AI systems - another record and more than double what the same category earned in the previous quarter.
Possibly the most impressive figure is the net income. Helped by the high-margin data center cards – Nvidia generates up to 1,000% profit on every H100 GPU sold – the company made $6.1 billion in profit during the quarter, up 843% YoY and more than triple what it made during the previous quarter.
The only markets that didn't see YoY increases were professional visualization and OEM & IP. Even gaming, which hasn't looked great for Nvidia given the lukewarm (and just plain bad) response to the RTX 4060/Ti, was up 22 percent year over year to $2.48 billion. The company said gaming is back to growth, adding that 20% of its install base now has an RTX 3060 or better. It also said an upgrade opportunity is coming up for gamers.
The results mean that Nvidia smashed its $11 billion revenue projection for the second quarter. It's now expecting revenue to increase 18% in Q3, reaching $16 billion, which would set new records for Jensen Huang and company.
The global demand for Nvidia's AI-focused products has skyrocketed this year. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are just two of the countries to have joined the AI arms race, buying up thousands of Nvidia chips, including the H100. China, meanwhile, is spending billions on them, even though they're cut-down versions made specifically to comply with Washington's limitations on interconnection speeds for China-bound GPUs.
Analysts say demand for Nvidia's AI products is exceeding supply by at least 50%. The Financial Times writes that the tech giant wants to triple production of the GH100 as it expects to ship 1.5 million units in 2024. It's easy to understand why some people are worried about Nvidia putting less focus on its gaming segment, especially when 77% of its revenue now comes from computing and networking. Things aren't changing anytime soon, either, as the GH200 superchip is in the works.