Nvidia's Earnings Eve: A $78 Billion Revenue Forecast Meets a $58.5 Billion Buyback War Chest and a China Export Blockade

Nvidia reports Q1 earnings with record $78B revenue, but stock pressured by China chip ban. Investors eye buyback announcement, institutional buying, and Goldman's $1T data center target.

Wall Street is bracing for what could be a record-setting quarter from Nvidia this Wednesday, but the narrative surrounding the chipmaker has grown unusually layered. Revenue consensus sits at roughly $78 billion — a 77% year-over-year surge — yet the stock is hovering just below its recent highs, weighed down by a fresh geopolitical hurdle out of Beijing. The result is an earnings event where the numbers alone may not be enough; investors will also need clarity on buyback ambition, next-generation chip roadmaps, and the fate of the Chinese market.

A potential catalyst in the near term is the possibility that Nvidia uses the earnings call to unveil a new share repurchase program. Analyst Jeff Pu of GF Securities has flagged the notion, noting that the company exited its previous quarter with roughly $58.5 billion still authorized for buybacks. With free cash flow reaching $34.9 billion in the last reported period, the balance sheet offers plenty of room for capital returns. A sizable buyback announcement wouldn't automatically justify the current valuation, but it could provide a meaningful floor under the stock.

Longer-term believers are getting reinforcements from the institutional side. Ray Dalio's Bridgewater Associates added 827,798 shares, Soros Fund Management picked up 407,530, and Tiger Global bought another 1 million shares. These moves don't replace the need for strong results, but they signal confidence that the AI infrastructure cycle still has years to run.

Goldman Sachs, meanwhile, published an analysis on May 17 that paints an even more ambitious scenario. The bank floated a long-term revenue target of $1 trillion for Nvidia's data center business, driven by the rise of "agentic AI" — autonomous systems that can reason and execute tasks independently. This marks a shift beyond generative AI, as newer models learn continuously from experience, demanding higher-speed interconnects and specialized memory bandwidth. Nvidia sees this as a way to defend its gross margin of around 75% even as production costs rise.

The product pipeline adds another layer of bullish detail. The Blackwell ramp is expected to deliver an additional 150,000 to 200,000 units versus the prior quarter, making supply chain execution a key checkpoint. Looking further ahead, the Rubin platform aims to cut inference token costs tenfold compared to Blackwell, and a dedicated inference GPU, possibly code-named Feynman, is on the drawing board.

Yet the most immediate headwind is coming out of China. After a summit in Beijing, President Donald Trump confirmed that China is blocking domestic companies from buying Nvidia's H200 chips, choosing instead to build its own alternatives despite existing U.S. export licenses. The news has already weighed on the stock, which lost about 4.4% over recent sessions and now trades around €196 — roughly 3% below its 52-week high from May 14. The Chinese market was long viewed as a potential growth driver, and the blockade creates a stubborn drag on sentiment.

Technically, the stock is testing a support zone near $224, corresponding to the 0.382 Fibonacci retracement of the recent rally. The options market is pricing in a post-earnings swing of 8% to 10%, reflecting the unusually high stakes.

When Nvidia reports Wednesday evening, the focus will fall on three key areas: Blackwell delivery volumes and yields, the outlook for the Vera Rubin platform (set for mass production by late 2026), and any concrete language on share buybacks. The data center segment alone is expected to contribute more than $65 billion in revenue, and adjusted earnings per share are forecast at $1.77. But the real test is whether Nvidia can pivot from a strong quarter to a convincing story about what comes next — especially with a billion-dollar question mark still hanging over China.