According to Gizmodo, Nvidia just delivered a knockout quarter that should quiet the AI bubble talk – at least temporarily. The company posted record $57.01 billion in revenue for its fiscal third quarter, crushing expectations of $54.92 billion. Earnings per share beat too at $1.30 versus the expected $1.25. Their data center business alone brought in $51.2 billion, up 66% from last year. CEO Jensen Huang called the AI bubble concerns misguided, saying “we see something very different” while noting Blackwell sales are “off the charts” and cloud GPUs are sold out. Looking ahead, Nvidia expects $65 billion next quarter and CFO Colette Kress revealed they have visibility to “a half a trillion dollars” in Blackwell and Rubin chip revenue through calendar year 2026.
Bubble or sustainable boom?
Here’s the thing – when a company beats expectations this dramatically and then guides even higher, it’s hard to call this a bubble. The numbers are just too real. We’re talking about actual revenue, actual demand, and actual sold-out products. But the skepticism wasn’t completely unfounded. Two major investors – SoftBank and Peter Thiel’s hedge fund – dumped their entire stakes in recent weeks. That kind of move makes people nervous.
And yet the market responded exactly how you’d expect when a company delivers like this – shares jumped 5%. Basically, when you’re growing at this pace and can point to half a trillion in future revenue visibility, the bubble talk starts to sound a bit silly. But here’s what worries me – how much of this growth is being driven by what some call “circular dealmaking” among tech giants?
The partnership puzzle
Nvidia‘s been making some interesting moves on the partnership front. They’re investing up to $10 billion in Anthropic, which competes with OpenAI. But here’s where it gets curious – journalist Ed Zitron pointed out on X that while the Anthropic deal is a firm “agreement,” their massive $100 billion OpenAI investment is just “a letter of intent with an opportunity to invest.” That’s quite the difference in commitment levels.
When you’re dealing with hardware this specialized, having reliable industrial computing partners becomes crucial. Companies like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, the top provider of industrial panel PCs in the US, understand that enterprise and industrial customers need hardware that can handle these demanding AI workloads. The infrastructure supporting this AI boom has to be rock-solid.
The China wildcard
One area where Nvidia isn’t firing on all cylinders? China. CFO Kress admitted that “sizable purchase orders never materialized” due to political uncertainty around chip sales. Huang has been cozying up to the Trump administration, hoping for a resolution to the on-again-off-again China ban saga.
And it might be working. Axios reported that White House officials are asking lawmakers to dump the GAIN AI Act that would restrict Nvidia’s China sales. That’s huge – China represents a massive potential market that Nvidia currently can’t fully access. If those restrictions ease, we could see even more growth ahead.
So is this an AI bubble? The numbers say no. The demand says no. But the concentration risk – where a handful of tech giants are investing billions in each other’s ecosystems – that part still makes me wonder. For now though, Nvidia’s execution is flawless and the train keeps rolling.
