NVIDIA Reports Record Earnings As AI Data Center Revenue Soars
NVIDIA is out here living its best life as it rides an AI wave that has yet to break to yet another quarter of record earnings, driven primarily by more explosive growth in its Data Center division.
Total revenue for the fourth quarter, which ended January 26, 2026, tallied $68.1 billion for a 20% sequential gain and a massive 73% year-over-year jump. The strong finish propelled NVIDIA's full year revenue for fiscal 2026 to $215.9 billion for a 65% year-over-year uplift.
"Computing demand is growing exponentially — the agentic AI inflection point has arrived. Grace Blackwell with NVLink is the king of inference today — delivering an order-of-magnitude lower cost per token — and Vera Rubin will extend that leadership even further," said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. "Enterprise adoption of agents is skyrocketing. Our customers are racing to invest in AI compute — the factories powering the AI industrial revolution and their future growth."
To say that the Data Center is the biggest contributor to NVIDIA's earnings is an understatement. While that's been the case for quite some time now, the Data Center accounted for more than 91% of NVIDIA's total fourth quarter earnings, generating $62.3 billion.
That represents a 22% gain from the previous quarter, which at the time was an all-time high, and a 75% year-over-year gain. Breaking it down even further, compute products and services accounted for $51.3 billion (up 58% year-over-year) of that tally, with networking adding $10.98 billion (up 263% year-over-year). Both of those are also record highs.
During an earnings call, NVIDIA's Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress cited "sustained strength in Blackwell and the Blacwell Ultra ramp" as playing a key role in hitting new high marks in the Data Center. However, the appetite for AI hardware is so insatiable that "even Hopper and much of the 6-year-old Ampere-based products are sold out in the cloud," Kress said.
Meanwhile, NVIDIA's Gaming division remains its second-biggest earner, albeit at an even more distant second-place finish. Gaming revenue tallied $3.73 billion, down 13% from the previous quarter, though up 47% from the same quarter a year ago. Naturally, NVIDIA focused on annual growth statistic, saying the 47% gain was driven by strong Blackwell demand and "improved supply," which refers to the company's GeForce RTX 50 series lineup that was introduced a year ago. And as for the sequential decline, NVIDIA said "channel inventory naturally moderated following a season of strong holiday demand."
One interesting side note to NVIDIA's dominant quarter is that it's reaching new heights largely without AI chip shipments to China, which is a potentially massive market.
"While small amounts of H200 products for China-based customers were approved by the U.S. government, we have yet to generate any revenue, and we do not know whether any imports will be allowed into China," Kress said.
Kress also warned that competitors in China are "making progress and have the potential to disrupt the structure of the global AI industry over the long term." She reiterated previous messaging by Huang, saying it's critical for America to engage every developer, "including those in China."
NVIDIA's record quarter is likely to be short-lived. Looking ahead, NVIDIA expects revenue for the first quarter of its fiscal 2027 to be even higher at $78 billion, plus or minus 2%, and that also does not include any Data Center dollars from China.
