Nvidia reports record $81.6 billion revenue as customers build generative‑AI infrastructure

Nvidia reported record quarterly revenue of $81.6 billion on May 20, saying demand for generative-AI infrastructure drove another surge in its core data-center business. The Santa Clara, California, company said revenue for the first quarter ended April 26 rose 20% from the previous quarter and 85% from a year earlier. (investor.nvidia.com) Data Center revenue reached a record $75.2 billion, up 92% from a year earlier, according to Nvidia’s earnings release. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and chief executive, said customers were building “AI factories” as spending on AI systems broadened. (sec.gov) ### Where did the $81.6 billion come from? Nvidia said Data Center revenue accounted for $75.2 billion of the $81.6 billion total, making that segment the company’s dominant source of sales in the quarter. Under Nvidia’s previous internal breakdown, Data Center compute revenue was $60.4 billion and Data Center networking revenue was $14.8 billion. The company said those figures were records for both categories. The quarter covered the period ended April 26, 2026, and Nvidia said total revenue increased 85% from the same quarter a year earlier. The company also reported GAAP gross margin of 74.9% and GAAP diluted earnings per share of $2.39. (investor.nvidia.com) Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $1.87, the release said. ### What did Huang mean by “AI factories”? Jensen Huang said in Nvidia’s earnings release that “the buildout of AI factories” was accelerating as companies and industries deployed agentic AI systems. He said agentic AI was “doing productive work, generating real value and scaling rapidly across companies and industries.” Nvidia described its position as spanning cloud systems, frontier and open-source models, and deployments from hyperscale data centers to edge computing. (investor.nvidia.com) Nvidia also tied that language to a reporting change. The company said it is moving to a new framework with two market platforms — Data Center and Edge Computing. (sec.gov) Within Data Center, Nvidia said it will now report two sub-markets: Hyperscale, covering public clouds and large consumer internet companies, and ACIE, which stands for AI Clouds, Industrial and Enterprise. Nvidia said ACIE reflects demand from “AI purpose-built data centers and AI factories across industries and countries.” ### How is Nvidia reorganizing the business it reports to investors? Nvidia said the new structure is meant to better reflect its “current and future growth drivers.” The company’s new top-level market platforms will be Data Center and Edge Computing, replacing the previous presentation in which investors focused more narrowly on older segment labels. (sec.gov) The change places enterprise and industrial AI infrastructure inside the ACIE sub-market within Data Center. Edge Computing will include products tied to agentic and physical AI, Nvidia said, including PCs, game consoles, workstations, AI-RAN base stations, robotics and automotive. (sec.gov) The company said the new framework is intended to show how its business now spans both centralized AI infrastructure and devices that process data closer to where it is generated. ### What else did Nvidia announce with the results? Nvidia said it returned about $20.0 billion to shareholders during the quarter through share repurchases and cash dividends. As of the end of the quarter, the company said it had $38.5 billion remaining under its existing repurchase authorization. (sec.gov) Nvidia also said its board approved an additional $80.0 billion for buybacks on May 18, without expiration. The company said it would raise its quarterly cash dividend from $0.01 per share to $0.25 per share. Nvidia said that dividend will be paid on June 26, 2026, to shareholders of record on June 4, 2026. (sec.gov) The company posted the earnings release, webcast and related quarterly materials on its investor relations site on May 20.