NVIDIA posts record $81.6 billion revenue: Why NVIDIA is the biggest winner of the global AI boom

NVIDIA, which has been a leading beneficiary of the AI boon, reported its Q1 Fiscal Year 2027 financial results on May 20, 2026. It has recorded a massive year-over-year revenue growth of 85 per cent, jumping to $81.62 billion from the $44.06 billion it reported in the same quarter last year. As of May 2026, its market cap is $5.41 trillion, solidifying its position as the most valuable company in the world, closely followed by Alphabet at $4.6 trillion and Apple at $4.3 trillion. These are historic numbers. For the Q1FY27, the reported net income is $58.3 billion, a 211 per cent jump from $18.8 billion a year ago.

Why is NVIDIA the biggest winner?

The major revenue driver for NVIDIA was the data centre segment, $75.2 billion in a single quarter, up by 92 per cent year-on-year. This is more than most Fortune 500 companies earn in an entire financial year. This implies that the majority of the private capital raised by AI companies flows directly to NVIDIA's bottom line, and it then reinvests the margin into the AI companies. NVIDIA is not just a supplier of the current AI wave; it is building the dedicated AI infrastructure for the AI wave. It exemplifies the ouroboros of the AI ecosystem.

Also Read: Who Is Vanessa Trump? Former model and Donald Trump Jr ex-wife diagnosed with breast cancer

This is further evident from the Cerebras system's IPO debut last week. The company’s market cap swelled to almost $100 billion on its first day of trading. The company makes ASIC application-specific integrated circuits, programmed for more specific tasks. While these are not as powerful as GPUs used for Large Language Models, they are also efficient for Agentic AI, with the growing computing shift towards inference. The space is increasingly becoming crowded with Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft all making ASCIs. Over 1,000 startups are available in the Agentic AI segment, while 20 are public. Among them, 13 are making real profit, which are legacy companies such as Microsoft, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and IBM, which have enterprise software monopolies or hardware giants. About 7 of the breakout companies in this cohort are still losing money on a net basis.

What makes the number more troubling is that in the years before the generative AI craze, Nvidia was primarily known for its gaming chips. In fiscal 2020, over half its revenue came from gaming, while just 27 per cent came from the data centre. The SpaceX SEC filings also shed light on AI infrastructure and its burn rate. Over all its operating at a nearly $4.3 billion loss in the quarter, the multi-billion dollar losses are driven by massive capital expenditures. Starlink is the segment where the company generates actual operational profit. The loss-making parts are xAI, X, and Starship. It is seeking $75 billion at a valuation of $1.75 trillion to $2 trillion, 100 times more than its revenue, speculating on future potential. But the loss acceleration is humongous, $528 million quarterly to $4.3 billion in one year. The whole picture will become clearer with the public disclosure of OpenAI and Anthropic. Every company in the AI stack is an NVIDIA customer, and it is the only one that's unambiguously profitable, while others are seeking public money to survive.