Nvidia(NVDA), the world’s largest public company by market value and bellwether for the AI sector, once again topped Wall Street expectations for the fourth quarter, reporting results after the close of U.S. markets on Wednesday.

The chipmaker beat estimates, reporting revenue of $68.1 billion, a 73% increase from a year earlier, as continued AI-related capital spending fueled strong demand for its chips. It also reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.62, beating estimates. Wall Street analysts expected Nvidia to report approximately $66.1 billion in revenue and $1.54 in adjusted EPS, according to FactSet data.

Shares rose as much as 4% in post-market trading on Wednesday following the earnings release, before paring some of the gains. The stock is now up about 1% in after-hours trading.

Investors are now focused on guidance. Nvidia expects first-quarter revenue of around $78 billion, up from analyst expectations of $72.9 billion, setting the tone for the next phase of AI-driven growth.

Data center boom

The chip-making giant also said that its Data Center revenue for the fourth quarter was a record $62.3 billion, up 75% from a year ago and up 22% from the prior quarter, driven by the "major platform shifts – accelerated computing and AI."

"Today’s report is a strong pushback against the narrative that hyperscaler AI growth could start fading into 2027," said Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com. "The roughly 75% surge in data center revenue further reinforces that hyperscaler AI infrastructure deployment remains firmly in expansion mode."

In fact, during the conference call, Nvidia's CFO, Colette Kress, said that "We have now scaled our data center business by nearly 13x since the emergence of ChatGPT" and that the company has inventory and supply commitments in place to address future demand, including shipments that extend into 2027.

President and CEO Jensen Huang, meanwhile, remained bullish on the outlook and demand for AI, saying that "the amount of computation demand for software in the past [was] a tiny fraction of what is necessary in the future."

"AI is here. AI is not going to go back. AI is only going only get better from here," he added.

Crypto stocks

Following the results and outlook, bitcoin remained near $69,000 after a 10% rally from Tuesday's lows. AI-focused crypto tokens such as Bittensor (TAO) and Internet Computer (ICP) added to their gains after Nvidia earnings were released. Since then, they have trimmed some of their advances.

Crypto miners, increasingly linked to AI and high-performance computing infrastructure, also saw modest gains following Nvidia's report. IREN (IREN), Cipher Digital (CIFR), and TeraWulf (WULF) were 1%-2% higher in after-hours trading, before giving up their gains.

UPDATE (Feb. 25, 11:17 pm UTC): Updates with CEO comment from the conference call.

UPDATE (Feb. 25, 10:50 pm UTC): Updates with CFO comment from the conference call; updates price action.

UPDATE (Feb. 25, 22:10 UTC): Adds analyst comment.