SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Nvidia’s sales of the computing chips powering the artificial intelligence craze surged beyond the lofty bar set by stock market analysts in a performance that may ease recent jitters about a Big Tech boom turning into a bust that topples the world’s most valuable company.
The results announced late Wednesday provided a pulse check on the frenzied spending on AI technology that has been fueling both the stock market and much of the overall economy since OpenAI released its ChatGPT three years ago.
Nvidia has been by far the biggest beneficiary of the run-up because its processors have become indispensable for building the AI factories that are needed to enable what’s supposed to be the most dramatic shift in technology since Apple released the iPhone in 2007.
But in the past few weeks, there has been a rising tide of sentiment that the high expectations for AI may have become far too frothy, setting the stage for a jarring comedown that could be just as dramatic as the ascent that transformed Nvidia from a company worth less than $400 billion three years ago to one worth $4.5 trillion at the end of Wednesday's trading.
Nvidia’s report for its fiscal third quarter covering the August-October period elicited a sigh of relief among those fretting about a worst-case scenario and could help reverse the recent downturn in the stock market.
“The market should belt out a heavy sigh, given the skittishness we have been experiencing,” said Sean O’Hara, president of the investment firm Pacer ETFs.
The company's stock price gained more than 5% in Wednesday's extended trading after the numbers came out. If the shares trade similarly Thursday, it could result in a one-day gain of about $230 billion in stockholder wealth.
Nvidia earned $31.9 billion, or $1.30 per share, a 65% increase from the same time last year, while revenue climbed 62% to $57 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet Research had forecast earnings of $1.26 per share on revenue of $54.9 billion. What's more, the Santa Clara, California, company predicted its revenue for the current quarter covering November-January will come in at about $65 billion, nearly $3 billion above analysts' projections, in an indication that demand for its AI chips remains feverish.
The incoming orders for Nvidia's top-of-the-line Blackwell chip are “off the charts,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a prepared statement that described the current market conditions as “a virtuous cycle.” In a conference call, Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Collette Kress said that by the end of next year the company will have sold about $500 billion in chips designed for AI factories within a 24-month span Kress also predicts trillions of dollars more will be spent by the end of the 2020s.
In a conference call preamble that has become like a State of the AI Market address, Huang seized the moment to push back against the skeptics who doubt his thesis that technology is at tipping point that will transform the world. “There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble. From our vantage point, we see something very different," Huang insisted while celebrating “depth and breadth” of Nvidia's growth.
The upbeat results, optimistic commentary and ensuring reaction reflects the pivotal role that Nvidia is playing in the future direction of the economy — a position that Huang has leveraged to forge close ties with President Donald Trump, even as the White House wages a trade war that has inhibited the company's ability to sell its chips in China's fertile market.
Trump is increasingly counting on the tech sector and the development of artificial intelligence to deliver on his economic agenda. For all of Trump’s claims that his tariffs are generating new investments, much of that foreign capital is going to data centers for AI’s computing demands or the power facilities needed to run those data centers.
“Saying this is the most important stock in the world is an understatement,” Jay Woods, chief market strategist of investment bank Freedom Capital Markets, said of Nvidia.
The boom has been a boon for more than just Nvidia, which became the first company to eclipse a market value of $5 trillion a few weeks ago, before the recent bubble worries resulted in a more than 10% decline. As OpenAI and other Big Tech powerhouses snap up Nvidia's chips to build their AI factories and invest in other services connected to the technology, their fortunes have also been soaring. Apple, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet Inc. and Amazon all boast market values in the $2 trillion to $4 trillion range.
FILE - Visitors give commands to robots at Nvidia's booth during the China International Supply Chain Expo at the China International Exhibition Center in Beijing, China, July 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A., File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments at 10 a.m. ET over the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship for children born in the United States to someone in the country illegally or temporarily.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of his second term, is part of his Republican administration’s broad immigration crackdown.
Trump plans to be in attendance. He will be the first sitting president to attend oral arguments at the nation’s highest court.
Every lower court to have considered the issue has found the order illegal and prevented it from taking effect. A definitive ruling by the nation’s highest court is expected by early summer.
Here’s the latest:
Way back in 1841, former President John Quincy Adams represented a shipload of African men and women who had been sold into slavery in the famous Amistad case.
Former President William Howard Taft became chief justice nearly eight years after leaving the White House in 1913. Charles Evans Hughes left the Supreme Court for a presidential run in 1912, which he nearly won, then returned to the court in 1930 as chief justice.
In 1966, Richard Nixon argued his only Supreme Court case, which he lost.
Twenty-four Democratic state attorneys general put out a statement Wednesday morning saying they’re “proud to lead the fight against this unlawful order.”
While Democratic attorneys general have sued the Trump administration scores of times, the plaintiffs in this case are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups.
The Democratic attorneys filed court papers supporting their position. Twenty-five of their Republican counterparts filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing the Trump administration.
The only state sitting this one out is New Hampshire.
More than 250,000 babies born in the U.S. each year would not be citizens, according to research from the Migration Policy Institute and Pennsylvania State University’s Population Research Institute.
The order would only apply going forward, the administration has said. But opponents have said a court ruling in Trump’s favor could pave the way for a later effort to take away citizenship from people who were born to parents who were not themselves U.S. citizens.
The president and first lady Melania Trump showed up for the court ritual marking the arrival of a new justice following the confirmations of Justice Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Justice Brett Kavanaugh a year later.
The ceremony for Trump’s third appointee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, was delayed a year because of the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump, who was no longer in office, did not attend.
Traditionally the president has avoided attending arguments to maintain distance between the government branches — since the executive officer’s presence is seen by many as a way to pressure the independent court to rule in their favor.
Given the unusual nature of it all — Trump’s presence in the courtroom spotlights how high the stakes are for him, as the court’s decision will have massive consequences on his longstanding promise to crack down on immigration.
Last year, Trump said that he badly wanted to attend a hearing on whether he overstepped federal law with his sweeping tariffs, but he decided against it, saying it would have been a distraction.
Adam Winkler, a constitutional law professor at UCLA, told the The Associated Press that Trump’s attending SCOTUS oral arguments signals how important the president views this case.
However, Trump’s presence “is unlikely to sway the justices,” Winkler said, adding that the SCOTUS justices “pride themselves in their independence, even if some agree with much of Trump’s agenda.”
The fanfare of Trump being in the courtroom will make for a different experience for the justices themselves, however, as “Trump’s presence will make the atmosphere a little bit more circus-like,” Winkler said.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer is making his ninth Supreme Court argument and second in as many weeks. Sauer’s biggest win to date was the presidential immunity decision that spared Trump from being tried for his effort to overturn the 2020 election.
Sauer was a Supreme Court law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia early in his legal career.
ACLU legal director Cecillia Wang, the child of Chinese immigrants, is presenting her second argument to the Supreme Court. In the first Trump administration, a 5-4 conservative majority ruled against Wang’s clients in another immigration case.
It’s not an April Fool’s joke. Alito was born this day in 1950. Only Thomas, who turns 78 in June, is older than Alito among the nine justices.
In the post-pandemic era, the other justices allow the 77-year-old Thomas, the longest-serving member of the court, to pose a question or two before the free-for-all begins.
In a second round of questioning, the justices ask questions in order of seniority. Chief Justice John Roberts, whose center chair makes him the most senior, gets the first crack.
The justices have routinely gone beyond the allotted time since returning to the courtroom following the Covid-19 pandemic.
A buzzer and the court marshal’s cry, “All rise,” signal the justices’ entrance from behind red curtains. The livestream won’t kick in for several minutes, until after the ceremonial swearing-in of lawyers to the Supreme Court bar.
FILE - The U.S. Supreme Court is seen in Washington on Feb. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
People arrive to walk inside the U.S. Supreme Court, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court justices will hear oral arguments today on whether President Donald Trump can deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
