- China stocks soar on stimulus, Europe slides on automaker woes
- German antitrust watchdog steps up monitoring of Microsoft
- Nepal's urban poor count cost of 'nightmare' floods
- E.Guinea, Gabon clash at ICJ over oil-rich islands
- New blow for UK's Starmer as growth data disappoints
- China's top banks to tweak mortgage rates to boost housing market
- Muslim women break taboos navigating east London's waterways
- Nepal dam-building spree powers electric vehicle boom
- More than 60 dead from storm Helene as rescue, cleanup efforts grow
- Dozens missing, 9 dead in migrant boat wreck off Spanish Canaries
- Death toll from Hurricane John hits eight in Mexico
- Storm Helene's toll rises as rescue and cleanup efforts gain pace
- SpaceX launches mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding as cleanup begins
- SpaceX set to launch mission to return stranded astronauts
- Storm Helene kills 44, threatens more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Boeing strike grinds on as latest talks fail to reach agreement
- Iran 'news' sites, hackers target Trump ahead of US election
- US ports brace for potential dockworkers strike
- Japan's speedy, spotless Shinkansen bullet trains turn 60
- US hurricane deaths rise to 44, fears of more 'catastrophic' flooding
- Global stocks mostly rise, cheering Beijing stimulus
- Europe en route for Moon with new simulator, says astronaut Pesquet
- Fireworks forecast if comet survives risky Sun flypast
- Argentina judge orders dictionary to delete pejorative definition of 'Jewish'
- Global stocks rise on rate hopes, Beijing stimulus
- S.African woman turns 118, among the oldest in the world
- UK clears $4 bn AI partnership between Amazon, Anthropic
- Barca fans barred from Champions League away game over racist banner
- Chinese stocks extend surge, Europe higher on Beijing stimulus
- Pope says Church must 'seek forgiveness' for child sexual abuse
- China caps week of 'bazooka' stimulus for ailing economy with rate cut
- Cuts, cash, credit: China bids to jumpstart flagging economy
- France's debt weighs heavier ahead of budget debate
- Iran treads carefully, backing Hezbollah while avoiding war
- Return to sender: waste stranded at sea stirs toxic dispute
- 'Broken' news industry faces uncertain future
- On remote Greek island, migratory birds offer climate clues
- Taken from mother by nuns, victim seeks answers as pope visits Belgium
- China cuts amount banks hold in reserve to boost lending
- Hong Kong, Shanghai extend surge as China optimism boosts markets
- Vietnam president reiterates support for Cuba during official visit
- Drought reduces Amazon River in Colombia by as much as 90%: report
- Stay or go? Pacific Islanders face climate's grim choice
- Florida bracing for 'unsurvivable' Hurricane Helene
- Poverty rises to over 52 percent in Milei's Argentina
- Chloe's see-through look may not be for Kamala Harris
- Champagne houses abuzz over English sparkling wine
- Macron, Trudeau pledge to work for 'decarbonized' economies
- Hurricanes, storms, typhoons... Is September wetter than usual?
Chip giant Nvidia rides AI wave as profits soar
US chip giant Nvidia, whose products play a crucial role in artificial intelligence systems, crushed expectations on Wednesday, as the post-ChatGPT AI frenzy continues to lift the tech sector.
The Silicon Valley-based company said sales doubled year-on-year to $13.5 billion in the latest completed quarter, leaving a net profit of $6.2 billion -- an eye-watering 843 percent higher than a year before.
Signaling that the boom in AI is still going strong, Nvidia said revenue in the current quarter would ramp up further to $16 billion.
"A new computing era has begun," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said after the stellar earnings report.
"Together accelerated computing and generative AI are driving a broad based computer industry platform shift. Our demand is tremendous," he said on an analyst call.
Nvidia's stock rose more than 8 percent following the results. This year, the company's share price has more than tripled.
Nvidia's quintessential position in delivering artificial intelligence has made it a bellwether on the generative AI frenzy that took hold of the tech world after the release of ChatGPT late last year.
As the wave began to build, the company already wowed Wall Street with spectacular earnings earlier in the year, helping transform Nvidia into a trillion dollar company based on market capitalization, a rare perch shared only by a handful of giants.
"The entire tech sector and overall market was waiting for Nvidia with this being the purest and best barometer for AI demand," said Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities.
In the end, the earnings "were a 'drop the mic' moment that will have a ripple impact for the tech space for the rest of the year," he said.
Riding high on his success, Huang, who is known for always wearing a black leather jacket, urged companies to shift their spending away from classic computing and embrace AI.
"AI provides a new way of generating productivity, a new way of generating new services to offer to your customers and accelerated computing helps you save money and save power," Huang said.
Nvidia manufactures graphics processing units (GPUs), a powerful chip technology that is necessary to build the generative AI that delivers ChatGPT as well as image, facial and speech recognition.
The company also offers AI-focused computers and services making it an unparalleled one-stop shop for AI.
Originally designed for video game graphics, each of Nvidia's GPU chips cost tens of thousands of dollars and companies are scrambling to stock up as the pressure to keep up with the AI revolution grows.
- Supply crunch? -
Customers have struggled to get their hands on Nvidia's AI chips as startups, big companies, governments and cloud providers ramp up orders and hoard stock.
Elon Musk, who this year started his own AI company, has said that GPUs "are considerably harder to get than drugs" at the moment, with buyers even looking to buy components from struggling cryptocurrency companies that also use GPUs.
Some fear that Nvidia may eventually struggle to meet demand with crucial components from Taiwan's TSMC chip-making plants hard pressed to meet Nvidia's needs.
Nvidia doesn't actually make its own chips, but rather designs them and then outsources the manufacturing to other companies. It is therefore vulnerable to chokepoints in its complex supply chain.
Nvidia's strategic role in AI saw the United States government last year place export restrictions on the company's highest performing chips, which forced the it to make slower versions for the Chinese market.
The White House is considering additional export curbs that could further limit Nvidia's access to the Chinese market.
In an analyst call, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress warned against the US cracking down harder, saying it "will result in a permanent loss of an opportunity for the US industry to compete and lead in one of the world's largest markets."
D.Philippon--CPN