NVIDIA is (really) profiting from the AI boom

NVIDIA has revealed that its revenue for the second quarter ending on July 27 rose 56 percent compared to the same period last year, and that's without shipping any H20 chips to China. It reported a revenue of $46.7 billion and a net income of $26.4 billion. As CNBC has noted, the company previously said that H20 shipments to China could have added $8 billion in sales to its second quarter figures. Instead, the company was only able to release $180 million worth of the chips to a customer outside of China. NVIDIA clearly still did very well in the second quarter, however, just like in the previous ones. This is the ninth straight quarter, ever since AI skyrocketed in popularity back in 2023, wherein the company's year-on-year revenue increase has exceeded 50 percent. 

The company designed the H20 specifically for the Chinese market, but the US government blocked its shipment earlier this year over concerns it could aid the nation's military. In mid-July, the government told NVIDIA that it will be able to ship the H20 to China again, but Chinese authorities discouraged local tech firms from using the chips. Now, the company is believed to be developing a new chip for China that's more advanced than the H20 and is based on the company's Blackwell architecture. Both the H20 and this upcoming more advanced chip could lead to another big leap in revenue and sales for the company. 

Speaking of Blackwell, NVIDIA has also announced that sales for its Blackwell-based chips rose 17 percent from the first quarter. The new product line, which is designed for advanced AI, reached $27 billion in sales and represented 50 percent of the company's data center revenue.