NVIDIA's data center business achieved 346% revenue growth over five years, establishing near-monopoly in AI accelerators.

Nvidia Corp. has delivered exceptional fourth-quarter earnings, with data center revenue reaching a record $35.6 billion, representing a 93.5% year-over-year increase and a 15.6% jump from the previous quarter's $30.8 billion. On an annual basis, the company's fiscal 2024 data center revenue was $47.5 billion, which more than doubled to $115.3 billion in fiscal 2025. During the earnings call, CEO Jensen Huang emphasized the strategic importance of this growth, stating that "Data centers will increasingly become AI factories, and every company will have either rented or self-operated." Huang further highlighted the company's momentum, noting, "We expect sequential growth from both compute and networking."

The scale of Nvidia's dominance becomes apparent when examining the five-year trajectory of its data center business. Revenue has grown 3460% from $1 billion in the January quarter of 2020 to $35.6 billion in the quarter ended January 2025. This explosive growth underscores the company's commanding position in the AI infrastructure market, where competitors have struggled to keep pace.

Intel's position in the data center market has deteriorated significantly since its 2022 dominance. Interim CEO Michelle Holthaus acknowledged the company's challenges during its fourth-quarter earnings call, stating, "But I am not happy with where we are today" and adding, "We're not yet participating in the cloud-based AI data center market in a meaningful way. We have learned a lot as we have ramped Gaudi and we are applying those learnings going forward." While AMD's fourth-quarter data center segment revenue increased 69% year-over-year to a record $3.9 billion, AMD CEO Lisa Su expects only strong double-digit growth in the data center business throughout 2025, driven by demand for server and GPU products—substantially slower than Nvidia's trajectory.

Following the earnings announcement, Nvidia rose 3.67% on Wednesday before falling 1.49% in after-hours trading, outpacing the 0.24% rise in the Invesco QQQ Trust, Series 1, which tracks the Nasdaq 100 index. The stock remains 5.08% lower on a year-to-date basis while up 66.81% over the past year. Benzinga tracks 40 analysts with an average price target of $172.28 for the stock, reflecting a "buy" rating, with estimates ranging from $120 to $220. Recent ratings from Rosenblatt, Morgan Stanley, and Tigress Financial average $197.33, suggesting a potential 52.59% upside.