NVIDIA CEO affirms that the AI boom is far from over during earnings announcement.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed concerns about an end to a spending boom on artificial intelligence chips on Wednesday, stating opportunities will expand into a multi-trillion-dollar market over the next five years. Despite his upbeat view on AI demand, shares of the chip designer fell 1.56 per cent to US$178.77 in premarket trading on Thursday as the company's tepid third-quarter sales forecast disappointed investors. The sales outlook excluded potential revenue from China, underscoring the uncertainty caused by Sino-U.S. trade tensions. Huang sought to reassure investors rattled by indications of slowing growth at the chipmaker at the center of the investment frenzy, with his bullish outlook contrasting with recent signs of fatigue in AI-focused stocks and comments from industry leaders about overheated investor enthusiasm.

"A new industrial revolution has started. The AI race is on," Huang said, adding "We see $3 trillion to $4 trillion in AI infrastructure spend by the end of the decade." Huang based his forecast in part on the $600 billion he expects for data center capital spending this year from major customers such as Microsoft and Amazon. For a data center costing as much as $60 billion, Nvidia can capture about $35 billion, according to Huang. One customer outside China bought $650 million worth of Nvidia's H20 reduced-capability chip aimed at the Chinese market in the latest quarter, demonstrating continued demand even amid trade restrictions.

Pushing up the chipmaker's shares are expectations of demand from Big Tech, data center owners known as hyperscalers, and China. Matt Orton, head of advisory solutions at Raymond James Investment Management, noted: "The mega caps are the ones propelling a lot of the capex that Nvidia is benefiting from. But obviously Nvidia still is growing, is able to sell. If anything, this just highlights that there's a lot of durability to this (AI) trade... The businesses of these hyperscalers can continue to accelerate, and you're not seeing any sort of sign of a slowdown being reflected in the results of Nvidia." While AI-facing stocks have shown signs of fatigue, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying this month that investors may be "overexcited" about AI, Nvidia's performance suggests otherwise.

Huang argued that Nvidia's technological advances allow customers to process increasing amounts of data while using less energy, stating "The more you buy, the more you grow" and "The buzz is: everything sold out." Nvidia and Huang see little reason for AI chip profit growth to slow, noting that second-quarter net income surpassed the fiscal third-quarter profit of Big Tech peer Apple. The company's high-end Blackwell chips are largely spoken for based on 2026 forecasts from its biggest customers, while its earlier-generation Hopper processors are being snapped up. Thomas Martin, portfolio manager at Globalt Investments, said: "When you have something that is new, and it's growing as fast as it is, and with all of the huge capex announcements from the hyperscalers, it's evidence that we're in the early stages" of the AI boom.