Nvidia started out making graphics cards for video games. Now it sells the chips that power the AI boom, and that has made it one of the most valuable companies in the world.
Nvidia designs computer chips called graphics processing units, or GPUs.
GPUs were first built to draw graphics for video games, which means doing thousands of simple calculations at the same time. That turned out to be exactly what’s needed to train and run artificial intelligence models, which involve enormous numbers of calculations in parallel.
When the AI boom took off, Nvidia already had the best-known chips for the job, and the software to go with them. Demand from technology giants building AI data centres has transformed the company.
Nvidia reported total revenue of US$215.9 billion for its 2026 financial year, which ended in January 2026, up 65 per cent on the year before.
The biggest share by far comes from its data centre business, which sells AI chips, complete server systems and networking equipment to cloud providers, large tech companies and governments. In the final quarter of that year, data centres brought in US$62.3 billion of revenue, around nine in every ten dollars the company earned.
Gaming, software and the risks ahead
Nvidia still sells graphics cards for gamers, and gaming remains a multi-billion-dollar business. It also sells chips for professional design and visual work, and for cars and robotics, though these are now small next to data centres.
Nvidia doesn’t make its own chips. It designs them and pays specialist manufacturers, chiefly Taiwan’s TSMC, to produce them. That keeps it out of the costly business of running factories, but leaves it reliant on a small number of suppliers.
Part of Nvidia’s strength is software. Its CUDA platform, which developers use to program its chips, has been built up over many years, and much of the world’s AI software is written for it. Switching to a rival’s chips can mean rewriting code, which helps keep customers loyal.
The risks are well known to investors. A small number of very large customers account for much of its sales, and several of them, including Google, Amazon and Microsoft, are designing their own AI chips. Rivals such as AMD are competing for the same orders, and U.S. export rules limit which chips Nvidia can sell to China.
That’s why Nvidia’s quarterly results have become one of the most closely watched events on the market calendar. They’re seen as a test of whether spending on AI is still growing, and its share price can move the whole Nasdaq when they land.
