United States: Nvidia, the chipmaker at the epicentre of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, has sent its stock to a record high with its announcement of a seven-fold increase in earnings.
The Santa Clara, California-based business reported on Wednesday that its net income increased from $2.04 billion to $14.88 billion in the first quarter of the previous year.
Revenue exceeded analysts’ predictions by more than trebling to $26.04 billion. Nvidia said that second-quarter revenue will reach $28 billion, give or take 2 percent, exceeding analysts’ projections.
To increase shareholder accessibility, Nvidia also declared that it will split its stock 10-for-1 on June 7 and increase its quarterly dividend by 150 percent to one cent per share.
By increasing the number of outstanding shares without changing the market capitalization of the company, stock splits lower the price per share for investors.
The price of Nvidia shares, which have increased by more than 90 percent this year, jumped by 5.9 percent to surpass $1,000.
Nvidia chief Jensen Huang declared, “The next industrial revolution has begun,” during a conference call with analysts.
“Companies and countries are partnering with Nvidia to shift the trillion-dollar traditional data centres to accelerated computing and build a new type of data centre – AI factories – to produce a new commodity: artificial intelligence,” Huang added.
For the foreseeable future, Huang predicted, demand for Nvidia processors will exceed supply, and the company would have to “racing every single day” to meet demand.
Over the past year, Nvidia has witnessed an exponential increase in demand for its graphics processing units as major tech companies like Google, Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon compete to lead the AI space.
Nvidia surpassed Saudi Aramco in March to take the third spot as the most valuable company in the world, behind Apple and Microsoft, with a market valuation of more than $2.1 trillion.
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