US semiconductor developer Nvidia's revenue has jumped by 79pc year on year in the fourth quarter of 2024, supported by data centre demand for advanced semiconductors.
Sales of Nvidia, which develops advanced chips for data centres, personal computers, automotive and robotic applications, reached $39.3bn in the fourth quarter, exceeding the previous forecast of $38bn. For the fiscal year 2025, revenue was $130.5bn, up by 114pc from a year ago.
Nvidia said it was focused on rapidly building out production of its latest chips, known as Blackwell, which helped to drive a surge in the firm's revenue.
"We delivered $11bn of Blackwell revenue to meet strong demand," Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang said in an investor call. "This is the fastest product ramp-up in our company's history, unprecedented in its speed and scale."
Data centre revenue reached $35.6bn, up by 93pc year on year.
Geographically, sequential growth in data centre revenue was strongest in the US and Europe, which are building their AI ecosystems. The company said sales in China remained well below levels seen on the onset of export controls.
Meanwhile, fourth-quarter automotive revenue was $570mn, up by 27pc from the previous quarter and 103pc from a year ago.
The rapid data centre growth is expected to drive demand for compound semiconductor materials such as indium phosphide, gallium arsenide, gallium nitride, tungsten and other electronic components including tantalum capacitors. The company has 350 plants manufacturing the 1.5mn components that go into each one of the Blackwell racks to get the Blackwell systems.
The company plays a key role in increasing AI investment at companies such as Microsoft. But the emergence of Chinese AI company DeepSeek in January, which claims to provide more efficient low-cost chips, [concerned] investors, with questions and fears of overspending in the industry. Nvidia's shares lost almost $600bn in market value in a day as DeepSeek emerged. "Nvidia has overcome worries about the production of its Blackwell chips and the impact on demand for computing power," Huang said. "We're going to have to continue to scale up as demand is quite high, and customers are anxious and impatient to get their Blackwell systems."
