Nvidia’s Record Quarter Comes with a $91 Billion Guidance, a $20 Billion CPU Bet, and a Market That Won’t Cheer

Nvidia reports $81.6B revenue, beats estimates, raises dividend 2,400%, unveils Vera CPU platform, but stock falls 2% after-hours for fourth straight earnings cycle.

The chipmaker delivered an $81.6 billion revenue quarter, hiked its dividend by a staggering 2,400%, and laid out a roadmap for its Vera CPU—but the stock dropped anyway for the fourth consecutive earnings cycle.

Nvidia’s first fiscal quarter of 2027 was a study in contradictions. Revenue surged 85% year-over-year to $81.6 billion, beating the analyst consensus of $78.8 billion. GAAP net income more than tripled to $58.3 billion, while diluted earnings per share hit $2.39—well above the $1.87 analysts had penciled in. On an adjusted basis, the chip titan earned $1.87 per share, also topping expectations of $1.77. Adjusted gross margins held steady at 75%, underscoring the pricing power Nvidia continues to wield in premium AI silicon.

Yet the stock shed roughly 2% in after-hours trading following the release. The pattern has become disconcertingly familiar: blowout numbers, a market that refuses to celebrate. On Wednesday, May 20, the shares closed at $223.47 after a massive $62.5 billion short position was unwound. The next session saw a pullback to $219.51 as hawkish FOMC minutes weighed on sentiment. In European trading, the stock stood at €190.10, roughly 5% below its 52-week high of €201.05. Year-to-date, Nvidia has still gained about 60%, and its market capitalisation hovers near $5.4 trillion, making it the world’s most valuable listed company.

Vera Rubin signals a new computing era

Under the hood, the results revealed a more profound shift. Nvidia has reorganised its reporting structure around three new segments: Hyperscale ($37.9 billion), AI-and-Enterprise Computing ($37.4 billion), and Edge Computing ($6.4 billion). The data center business, the company’s crown jewel, delivered record revenue of $75.2 billion—up 92% from a year ago—with networking sales nearly tripling to $14.8 billion, driven by the ramp of Blackwell-300 chips and demand for InfiniBand and Spectrum-X Ethernet solutions.

But the headline act was CEO Jensen Huang’s unveiling of the Vera Rubin platform, which pairs a new Vera central processing unit with the upcoming Rubin graphics processor. Huang said the architecture will enter production later this year, and that supply constraints are likely to persist across the entire product cycle because demand is “parabolic.” The Vera CPU alone targets a $200 billion addressable market, and Nvidia aims to book roughly $20 billion in CPU revenue by the end of 2026. That would mark a bold departure from a company historically synonymous with graphics chips.

Capital returns on steroids

Investors received a second jolt in the form of a dividend hike that pushes the quarterly payout from $0.01 to $0.25 per share—a 2,400% increase. The distribution is scheduled for June 26, 2026, with a record date of June 4. Alongside that, the board authorised a new $80 billion share buyback programme, adding to the $38.5 billion remaining under previous authorisations. In the quarter just ended, Nvidia returned $20 billion to shareholders, supported by free cash flow of $48.6 billion.

The China conundrum

One cloud hanging over the report is the absence of China. For the first time, the data center segment recorded zero revenue from the country; a year earlier, China contributed $4.6 billion. US export restrictions have blocked shipments of Hopper chips to the region. Huang conceded that Huawei has become “very, very strong” in its home market and that Nvidia has “largely given up” on China. The loss of what was once a key growth engine helps explain why some analysts remain cautious despite the blockbuster headline numbers.

Guidance and the long view

For the current quarter, Nvidia guided to revenue of approximately $91 billion, a sequential increase that implies continued momentum. Purchase and production commitments for the second quarter have swelled to $119 billion, up from $95.2 billion in the prior period, signalling the company’s conviction in its own trajectory. Analysts at Argus, Needham, and RBC have raised their price targets to $270, citing the strength of the data center business and the promise of the Vera Rubin cycle.

Whether the market will eventually warm to the story remains an open question. For now, Nvidia is posting numbers that would be unimaginable for almost any other company—and the stock is being held to a standard that may be impossible to meet.