The Nvidia logo is displayed on a smartphone.
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Nvidia's data center business posted fourth-quarter revenue of $18.4 billion, underscoring how the computer chip giant continues to benefit from the current artificial intelligence boom.
As part of Nvidia's fourth-quarter results released on Wednesday, the company said its data center unit grew 409%, compared to $3.62 billion reported in the same period last year. Analysts expected Nvidia's data center division to report revenue of $17.06 billion in the fiscal fourth quarter.
Investors are closely watching Nvidia's data center business, which includes the company's H100 graphics cards, which are often used for generative AI apps like OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022, tech giants like Alphabet and Meta, as well as high-profile startups like Anthropic and Cohere, have released increasingly powerful versions of their respective large language models that require massive amounts of computing power.
In fact, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in January that the social networking giant's computing infrastructure will include 350,000 H100 graphics cards by the end of 2024, suggesting that Meta is spending billions of dollars on the popular as part of its artificial intelligence efforts Nvidia produces computer chips.
Nvidia's data center unit has performed strongly, particularly in the last three quarters. It is currently the market leader in supplying computer chips for AI research and products.
Here's a look at Nvidia's data center sales since the company's third fiscal quarter of 2023, which ended about a month before OpenAI released ChatGPT:
- Fiscal 3rd Quarter 2024 – Data center revenue of $14.51 billion, up 279% year over year.
- Fiscal 2nd Quarter 2024 – Data center revenue of $10.32 billion, up 171% year over year.
- Fiscal 1st Quarter 2024 – Data center revenue of $4.28 billion, up 14% year over year.
- In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, data center revenue was $3.62 billion, up 11% year over year.
- In the third quarter of fiscal 2023, data center revenue was $3.83 billion, up 31% year over year.
Regard: Nvidia is well positioned to sell in a supply-constrained market
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