Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company with a market capitalization of $4.39 trillion at the time of writing, beat revenue expectations for its fiscal second quarter, reporting sales of $46.74 billion on Wednesday after market close.

Nvidia posted that data center revenue was up 56% from a year prior, reaching $41.1 billion.

The company’s longtime CEO, Jensen Huang, told Fox Business Network’s The Claman Countdown on Thursday that AI, which Nvidia is advancing, would cause “some jobs” to disappear but result in new jobs becoming “invented.”

Related: Nvidia Pulls Ahead of Apple and Microsoft to Become the World’s First $4 Trillion Public Company

“One thing for sure, every job will be changed as a result of AI,” Huang said.

^{Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. Photo by Wan Quan/VCG via Getty Images}

Huang also told Fox Business that he expects the economy to be doing “very well” in the future due to AI and automation, and stated that the quality of life for humanity would improve.

Huang’s remarks add to what he said last month on an episode of The All-In Podcast. On the podcast, Huang stated that the “one thing we know for certain” is that people who use AI will replace those who don’t. He predicted that AI use will lead to more millionaires in the next five years than the Internet produced in two decades.

Related: How Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Transformed a Graphics Card Company Into an AI Giant: ‘One of the Most Remarkable Business Pivots in History’

Huang also called AI the “greatest technology equalizer of all time” because it allows anyone to program by simply using plain English prompts (a practice known as “vibe coding,” which even Google CEO Sundar Pichai has dabbled in).

“AI in my case is creating jobs,” Huang said on the podcast, adding that the technology enables people to “create things that other people would like to buy.”

AI allows creative people to act on their ideas by providing technical services. In turn, it enables technical people to use it for creative endeavors, Huang pointed out.

Nvidia held 92% of the market share for AI chips in the first quarter of the year. Its chips power ChatGPT, an AI chatbot with more than 700 million weekly users as of this month, up from 500 million users in March.

Related: Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang Says He’s ‘Created More Billionaires’ Than Anyone Else — Adding Two More This Week

Nvidia’s stock was up over 30% year-to-date at the time of writing.

To say that investors were on the edge of their seats ahead of Nvidia‘s (NVDA -0.27%) highly anticipated financial report may well be an understatement. As the poster child for the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution, the company has become the benchmark for the tech industry at large and the yardstick by which progress in AI is being measured.

While the chipmaker delivered better-than-anticipated results on both the top and bottom lines, there were a few blemishes in what would have been an otherwise spotless report.

Let’s take a look at what the results reveal, and if they give us any insight into the future of AI.

Paint by numbers

Investors had high hopes ahead of Nvidia’s fiscal 2026 first quarter (ended April 27), and the AI chipmaker delivered. The company generated record revenue of $44.1 billion, up 69% year over year and 12% quarter over quarter. This drove adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $0.81, which climbed 33%.

For context, analysts’ consensus estimates were calling for revenue of $43.25 billion and EPS of $0.75, so Nvidia sailed past expectations with some wiggle room.

Fueling the bullish results was a record-setting performance from the data center segment, which continues to drive growth. The segment — which includes processors used for data centers, AI, and cloud computing — generated revenue that surged 73% year over year to $39.1 billion, driven by continuing demand for AI.

One item of note was the Trump administration’s tightening export restrictions. Nvidia’s H20 processor was originally designed to meet the already rigid requirements for AI chips destined for China. However, demand evaporated thanks to the new, more stringent licensing requirements, causing Nvidia to take a $4.5 billion charge in Q1 — though that was lower than the $5.5 billion estimate the company provided last month.

The impact of the move trickled its way down the financial statements. For example, if not for the write-off, Nvidia’s adjusted EPS would have clocked in at $0.96, resulting in a hit of about $0.15 per share.

However, as revenue jumped 69%, operating expenses climbed just 44%, sending more to the bottom line and helping blunt the impact of the lost sales to China. Nvidia’s cash stockpile has grown over the past year, with cash and marketable securities of $53.7 billion, an increase of 71%. Free cash flow of $26.1 billion soared 75%.

CEO Jensen Huang provided commentary about the future of the AI revolution, and the rock star chief executive didn’t mince words:

Global demand for Nvidia’s AI infrastructure is incredibly strong. AI inference token generation has surged tenfold in just one year, and as AI agents become mainstream, the demand for AI computing will accelerate. Countries around the world are recognizing AI as essential infrastructure — just like electricity and the internet — and Nvidia stands at the center of this profound transformation.

This pronouncement, combined with the company’s robust business performance, helped drive Nvidia stock higher in after-hours trading, with shares up more than 4% (as of this writing).

The tariffs wild card

Management expects the company’s growth spurt to continue. Nvidia is guiding for record second-quarter revenue of $45 billion, which would represent year-over-year growth of 50%. This was largely in line with Wall Street’s consensus estimates, but the devil is in the details. The number includes a loss of approximately $8 billion in its fiscal Q2 revenue from the H20 chips, thanks to the more stringent export requirements.

Despite the hit to its growth, investors remain bullish on Nvidia stock. Shares are currently selling for roughly 32 times next year’s expected earnings. While that’s a modest premium, it’s still an attractive price to pay for a company expected to grow its profits by 39% this fiscal year and 35% in its fiscal 2026 — even after the hit to China sales.

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress revealed, “Large cloud service providers remained our largest [customers] at just under 50% of data center revenue.” A quick calculation reveals that 44% of Nvidia’s total revenue is currently dependent on the world’s largest cloud infrastructure providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft‘s Azure Cloud, and Alphabet‘s Google Cloud. Honorable mention goes to Meta Platforms, which has also significantly scaled up capital expenditures (capex) to build out its data centers.

As evidenced by Nvidia’s results, the data center build-out continues, and the world’s largest tech companies and cloud providers have telegraphed their intention to continue the heavy spending that has characterized the build-out of AI infrastructure. Nvidia continues to dominate the data center GPU market, with more than 90% of the market.

For long-term investors, this quarter is one data point in a long track record of impressive execution. Nvidia remains at the heart of the AI revolution, which illustrates that the stock likely has much higher to go from here. It continues to be one of my highest-conviction stocks.

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Danny Vena has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.