Nvidia Posts $58.3 Billion Net Profit and Unveils Vera CPU — Why Investors Still Held Back

Nvidia Q1 2027: Revenue $81.6B, net profit up 200%, but stock muted as China export ban and Vera CPU pivot shift investor focus.

Nvidia delivered another quarterly earnings beat that would make most companies envious, yet the stock barely budged. The chipmaker’s first fiscal quarter of 2027 saw revenue surge to $81.6 billion, adjusted earnings per share hit $1.87, and net profit rocket to $58.3 billion – a 200% jump from a year ago. But the market’s reaction was muted, with shares closing at €185.46 and slipping another 1.3% in after-hours trading. The reason? Investors are already looking past the numbers to questions about China, new product cycles, and whether even Nvidia can sustain its blistering pace.

The data-center division remained the engine room, generating $75.25 billion in revenue, up 92% year on year. Within that, networking sales tripled to around $15 billion as hyperscalers rushed to deploy the Blackwell-300 architecture and its associated InfiniBand and NVLink interconnects. Chief executive Jensen Huang declared that “demand has gone parabolic,” and the company’s own guidance supports that view: Nvidia expects second-quarter revenue of roughly $91 billion, comfortably above the analyst consensus of $86.84 billion. Adjusted gross margin is seen holding steady at 75%.

Yet the real strategic pivot came not in the numbers but in a product announcement. Nvidia unveiled the Vera CPU, a processor designed specifically for agentic AI – software agents that execute tasks autonomously. Huang said the addressable market for this technology stands at $200 billion, and the company expects Vera CPU sales to reach $20 billion as early as 2026. The move broadens Nvidia’s reach beyond its dominant GPU base into the central processing realm, and it sets the stage for the next-generation Rubin systems, which are due to start shipping in the third quarter of 2026.

That vision was undercut by one persistent worry: China. Nvidia sold zero H20 chips to China during the quarter, as US export restrictions continued to lock the company out of a market it values at $50 billion in annual potential. Chief financial officer Colette Kress confirmed that chip sales to China currently contribute no revenue, and the path to obtaining export licenses remains uncertain. Nvidia’s guidance for the current quarter explicitly excludes any China-related data-center income, meaning any relaxation of trade rules would be pure upside.

Despite the geopolitical drag, Nvidia’s cash generation is staggering. Free cash flow came in at $48.6 billion for the quarter. The board authorized an additional $80 billion in share repurchases, on top of $38.5 billion remaining from earlier programs, and the company spent a record $20 billion on buybacks in the first quarter alone. The quarterly dividend was raised twenty-five-fold from $0.01 to $0.25 per share – a move that signals confidence but also underscores just how much cash the business is throwing off.

Analysts remain bullish, albeit with a tinge of caution. A survey of 62 analysts by S&P Global produced a consensus “Strong Buy” rating and an average target of around $294, while a separate poll of 52 analysts put the target at $303.27. UBS lifted its price objective from $275 to $280, and Morningstar raised its fair value estimate to $280 from $260, citing Nvidia’s wide moat from the CUDA software ecosystem. Technically, the stock’s relative strength index sits at 40.5, edging toward oversold territory but not quite there yet.

Portfolio manager John Belton of Gabelli Funds summed up the mood: “Solid results without earth-shattering news.” That captures the central paradox of Nvidia today. The company is executing at a level that would be extraordinary for any other firm, but expectations have been set so high that merely beating them no longer moves the needle. The next catalyst could come from a China trade thaw, the ramp of Rubin systems, or the Vera CPU’s contribution later this year. For now, the market is waiting – and Nvidia is still producing the best quarterly numbers in tech.