Nvidia reported $81.6 billion in revenue for the quarter ending April 26, a 20% increase from the previous quarter, but signaled a slowdown ahead with next-quarter guidance of $91 billion — representing 12% growth. Data center revenue reached $75.2 billion, driven by widespread adoption of the Blackwell architecture. The company authorized $80 billion in share repurchases on the strength of the results.
The headline surprise was Nvidia's privately held stakes, which nearly doubled from $22 billion at the start of the quarter to $43 billion by the end. The company purchased $18.5 billion in private equity over those three months, compared to just $649 million in the previous quarter. The figure excludes publicly traded investments in Corning and IREN, as well as future commitments not yet closed.
“Our Blackwell architecture is everywhere, adopted and deployed by every major hyperscaler, every cloud provider, and every major model maker.”— Colette Kress, Nvidia CFO
Nvidia committed $30 billion to OpenAI in February, though the precise structure of that deal remains undisclosed. The investment does not yet appear in the $43 billion total. Nvidia also deepened its infrastructure partnership with Anthropic, a relationship that had been negligible until recently.
Key facts
- 01Nvidia reported $81.6B in revenue for the quarter ending April 26, up 20% from the previous quarter.
- 02Data center revenue reached $75.2B, driven by Blackwell architecture adoption.
- 03Nvidia's privately held stakes nearly doubled to $43B from $22B, including $18.5B in new purchases.
- 04The company forecasts $91B in revenue next quarter, representing 12% growth — a marked slowdown.
- 05Nvidia committed $30B to OpenAI in February and is building significant capacity for Anthropic.
Blackwell adoption is proceeding across every major hyperscaler, cloud provider, and foundation model lab. The architecture is driving data center revenue growth as AI training and inference workloads scale. Nvidia projected the slowdown in revenue growth to 12% next quarter, a deceleration from the 20% clip it sustained through April.
Huang emphasized the scope of Nvidia's capacity buildout for Anthropic, calling the planned deployment over the next two years significant. Nvidia had previously maintained minimal exposure to Anthropic compared to other major labs. The shift reflects Anthropic's rising infrastructure demands as it scales Claude and competes with OpenAI and Google.
China exports remain a minimal factor in Nvidia's results. The company has approval to export H200s to China, but CFO Colette Kress said Nvidia has generated no revenue from those shipments and remains uncertain whether imports will proceed. Chinese demand, once a major source of data center sales, has not recovered meaningfully under current export controls.
The $18.5 billion in private equity purchases over the quarter represents a 28x increase from the prior period. Nvidia is deploying capital into AI startups at a pace few public companies can match. The strategy ties Nvidia's GPU dominance to the financial success of the labs building on its hardware, effectively making Nvidia a portfolio investor in the AI stack.
The revenue slowdown to 12% growth next quarter is the first material deceleration Nvidia has signaled in over two years. The company remains the largest beneficiary of AI infrastructure spending, but hyperscaler buildouts are moderating as model labs optimize inference costs and training runs plateau. Nvidia's private investments give it exposure to the next wave of AI product companies, even as its core hardware sales growth cools.
The counterweight is execution risk on Blackwell and the sustainability of 12% quarterly growth at Nvidia's scale. The company is guiding conservatively after two years of blowout beats, but any stumble in Blackwell production or a sharper slowdown in hyperscaler spending could reset investor expectations. The private equity bets also carry risk — Nvidia is now financially exposed to the success of startups that may not deliver commercial products for years.
Nvidia is no longer just a picks-and-shovels play on AI infrastructure. The $43 billion in private stakes makes it a financial backer of the labs building the models, a strategic position that locks in future demand but also ties Nvidia's outcomes to the commercial success of companies like OpenAI and Anthropic. If those bets pay off, Nvidia captures upside beyond GPU sales. If they don't, the company is holding tens of billions in illiquid stakes tied to an AI market that may consolidate or stumble.
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