Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and chief executive, told attendees at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia + Technology conference on Thursday that the company’s revenue will rise by 70% next year.
That forecast comes despite growing competition for graphics processing units and artificial intelligence chips from hyperscalers like Amazon, Microsoft and Google, as well as from AI labs including Anthropic and OpenAI. New public rivals such as Cerebras and private startups like Etched are also entering the market.
“Most people think Nvidia builds a chip,” Huang said. “I mean, you need airplanes to ship what we build.” He noted that the company still battles perceptions from its early days when GPUs were sold to gamers for around $399. “One GPU now is not $399. It’s $8.5 million dollars. That’s one GPU, all connected with NVLink, 2 million parts, right? 250,000 kilowatts. That’s a GPU, and we ship thousands of them.”
Orders for a specific system combining 36 Grace CPUs with 72 Blackwell GPUs are currently seeing 27% month-to-month sales growth.
Huang did not stop at current sales figures. He restated Nvidia’s revenue outlook for the coming year, a guidance the company issued last month following another record-breaking quarter. That is when he first announced potential 70% growth. “I think we could grow 70% year over year. We’re confident about that,” he said again on Thursday. Analysts expect the company to finish its current fiscal year with roughly $400 billion in revenue. A 70% increase would push that figure to around $680 billion next year.
His confidence rests on the belief that Nvidia is embedded in every area of artificial intelligence, allowing him to see the future. “Nvidia runs every model. Every single lab can use us,” the CEO said. He listed models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, as well as open-weight offerings. “We are a foundational platform of the AI ecosystem, foundational platform of the AI industry.”
The company’s reach extends from memory chip suppliers to data centre projects and startups.
“We’re tracking every single gigawatt of land, power, shell around the world. Literally everything on the planet,” he said. The word “shell” refers to the structure of a data centre building before it is installed with computers.
“I mean, just think about all my partners. How many neoclouds are reporting back to us? How many OEMs are reporting back to us? How many clouds are reporting back to us? How many AI native companies are reporting back to us? We’re working with everybody, and so we kind of know where everything is,” he said.
That remark prompted inevitable questions about Nvidia’s so-called circular deals, where the company invests in firms that subsequently purchase its products. Such schemes famously contributed to the collapse of previous internet infrastructure suppliers like Lucent Technologies.
Huang offered a simple, albeit cheeky, response. “Well, it’s not circular because we put a little bit of money in, and a lot of money comes back.” He added, “I look at the spreadsheet, we put in $1 and $100 comes back in. Is that circular? If that is, let’s do more of that.”
Aside from the jokes, he insisted that Nvidia ensures any invested company has real contracts generating revenue from customers before receiving funding. In total, he has seen $100 billion worth of such contracts. “I’m not taking any risks. … I need a sure thing.”
Time will tell whether Nvidia’s stronghold on artificial intelligence can persist long term. If there is one golden rule of the tech industry, it is that all big things get disrupted. Currently, Huang admits much of AI’s growth comes from AI-native startups raising vast sums and spending most of that cash on their own AI use. As the industry matures, companies will likely become more efficient in how they use infrastructure and tokens.
For now, Nvidia has its finger in every pie and sees another year of plenty in its future.
