Nvidia’s latest quarter reads less like an earnings release and more like a balance sheet for the AI industrial revolution, with revenue, profits, and guidance all accelerating as if on GPU overclock.
Record Quarter: When “Blowout” Sounds Too Modest
Nvidia reported fourth-quarter revenue of 68.1 billion dollars, up 20% sequentially and 73% year over year, a scale that now makes traditional chip cycles look almost quaint. GAAP gross margin reached 75.0%, with operating income of 44.3 billion dollars and net income of 43.0 billion dollars, nearly doubling from the prior year’s period. Diluted earnings per share clocked in at 1.76 dollars, up 35% from the prior quarter and 98% from a year ago, underscoring how much of each incremental AI dollar is flowing straight to the bottom line.
For the full fiscal year 2026, Nvidia generated 215.9 billion dollars in revenue, up 65% year over year, with net income of 120.1 billion dollars and GAAP EPS of 4.90 dollars, cementing its role as the de facto platform company for accelerated computing. Operating cash flow reached 102.7 billion dollars for the year, and free cash flow hit 96.6 billion dollars, giving the company ample fuel to invest in new architectures while still rewarding shareholders.
Data Center: The New “AI Factory” Standard
The core of Nvidia’s story remains the data center business, which has evolved from a growth engine into something closer to critical infrastructure for the AI economy. Data center revenue in the fourth quarter reached 62.3 billion dollars, up 22% sequentially and 75% year over year, driven by accelerating demand for AI and accelerated computing platforms. Full-year data center revenue climbed 68% to 193.7 billion dollars, a number that would have sounded speculative just a few product cycles ago.
Nvidia unveiled its Rubin platform, a new generation of chips designed to deliver up to a 10x reduction in inference token cost compared with the already-formidable Blackwell platform, with hyperscalers including Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure among the first adopters. The company also highlighted Blackwell Ultra, which it says can deliver up to 50x better performance and 35x lower cost for “agentic AI” workloads versus the Hopper platform, a reminder that the performance bar in AI is being raised in large, discrete steps rather than incremental tweaks.
Beyond Chips: Ecosystem, Partnerships, And AI Reach
If early Nvidia was a GPU company, this version increasingly resembles an AI operating system spanning silicon, software, and services. The quarter showcased a dense web of partnerships: a multiyear, multigenerational strategic agreement with Meta for large-scale deployment of Blackwell and Rubin GPUs, CPUs, and networking; deeper collaboration with AWS on interconnects, cloud infrastructure, and open models; and an investment and technology partnership with Anthropic as it scales Claude on Azure using Nvidia systems.
The company is also extending its reach into specialized domains, announcing a co-innovation AI lab with Eli Lilly to reinvent drug discovery and a major expansion of its BioNeMo platform for AI-based biology. In physical and industrial AI, Nvidia is working with Boston Dynamics, Caterpillar, LG and others through its Isaac and Cosmos stacks, while teaming with Siemens and Dassault Systèmes to build industrial AI platforms and virtual twin ecosystems—turning AI from a concept into an operating layer for factories and infrastructure.
Gaming, Pro Visualization, And Autos: Side Businesses With Billion-Dollar Scale
While data center steals the headlines, Nvidia’s “other” segments would be headline businesses at most technology firms. Gaming revenue came in at 3.7 billion dollars in the quarter, up 47% year over year but down 13% sequentially as channel inventory normalized after a strong holiday season, with full-year gaming revenue up 41% to a record 16.0 billion dollars. The company pushed its AI edge into consumer graphics with DLSS 4.5, new G-SYNC Pulsar display technology, and faster RTX AI performance that can accelerate large language model inference on PCs and boost AI-generated visuals.
Professional visualization revenue surged to 1.3 billion dollars in the quarter, up 74% sequentially and 159% year over year, as demand for Blackwell-powered RTX workstations expanded, lifting full-year revenue in the segment by 70% to 3.2 billion dollars. Automotive and robotics revenue reached 604 million dollars in the fourth quarter, rising 2% sequentially and 6% year over year, with full-year revenue up 39% to 2.3 billion dollars, supported by partnerships with Mercedes-Benz and a growing DRIVE Hyperion ecosystem that now includes a range of Tier 1 suppliers and sensor partners.
Capital Returns, Guidance, And The AI Industrial Revolution
Even as Nvidia invests aggressively in new platforms like Rubin, Nemotron 3, Earth-2 weather models, and AI-native storage, it is returning substantial capital to shareholders. During fiscal 2026 the company returned 41.1 billion dollars via share repurchases and dividends, and it still had 58.5 billion dollars remaining under its repurchase authorization at year-end; the next quarterly dividend of 0.01 dollars per share is scheduled for April 1, 2026.
Looking ahead, Nvidia guided first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue to 78.0 billion dollars, plus or minus 2%, with expected GAAP gross margin of 74.9% and non-GAAP gross margin of 75.0%, notably without assuming any data center compute revenue from China. CEO Jensen Huang framed the moment succinctly, noting that “computing demand is growing exponentially” and that the “agentic AI inflection point has arrived,” positioning Nvidia’s Grace Blackwell with NVLink as “the king of inference” today, with Vera Rubin set to extend that lead. Wall Street may debate whether this is an AI boom or a new computing regime, but Nvidia’s latest quarter makes one thing clear: for now, it is the house in this particular casino—and the chips are very much in its favor.
The Sources
- Nvidia Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2026 – Yahoo Finance
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-fourth-213100479.html[finance.yahoo] - NVIDIA Announces Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2026 – Nvidia Investor Relations
http://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-announces-financial-results-for-fourth-quarter-and-fiscal-2026[nvidianews.nvidia] - Nvidia Stock Pops as Earnings Beat, Guidance Stifles Some AI Concerns – Yahoo Finance
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/nvidia-earnings-live-nvidia-stock-pops-as-earnings-beat-guidance-stifles-some-ai-concerns-21[finance.yahoo] - Tech Stocks Today: Nvidia Stock Rises as Guidance Signals AI Boom Alive and Well – Yahoo Finance
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/tech-stocks-today-nvidia-stock-rises-as-guidance-signals-ai-boom-alive-and-well-220259696.ht[finance.yahoo] - Nvidia Q4 FY 2025: AI Growth Continues Amid Margin Pressures – The Futurum Group
https://futurumgroup.com/insights/nvidia-q4-fy-2025-ai-momentum-strengthens-despite-margin-pressures/[futurumgroup] - NVIDIA Corp (NVDA) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Highlights – Yahoo Finance transcript
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-corp-nvda-q4-2025-072422920.html[finance.yahoo] - Nvidia Earnings Live Updates: Stock Rises As Revenue, EPS Beat – Business Insider
https://www.businessinsider.com/nvidia-q4-earnings-live-updates-ai-chips-rubin-jensen-huang-2026-2[businessinsider] - What AI Bubble? Nvidia Posts Record 68 Billion Dollar Quarterly Revenue – Fortune
https://fortune.com/2026/02/25/nvidia-nvda-earnings-q4-results-jensen-huang/[fortune] - Nvidia Corporation (NVDA) Stock Price, News, Quote & History – Yahoo Finance
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/NVDA/[finance.yahoo] - Why Nvidia Stock Is Soaring in After-Hours Trading – Yahoo Finance
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-nvidia-stock-soaring-hours-224657731.html[finance.yahoo]
