NVIDIA Had a Record Quarter — But Its Next-Quarter Forecast Fell Short of What Wall Street Wanted

NVIDIA made $81.6 billion in revenue during the first quarter of its fiscal year 2027, which is 85% more than the same period a year ago. The bulk of that money — $75.2 billion — came from its Data Center business, which sells the specialized chips (called GPUs) that power artificial intelligence systems. That part of the business grew 92% year over year. The figures were disclosed in a press release dated May 20, 2026 NVIDIA News.

Data Center alone made up about 92% of NVIDIA's total revenue. That share has grown as the biggest cloud computing companies — think Amazon, Microsoft, and Google — have poured money into buying GPUs at scale. The 92% growth rate in Data Center revenue is slower than the even higher percentage gains NVIDIA posted in earlier quarters of fiscal 2026, though the amount of new money is still enormous.

For the second quarter, NVIDIA said it expects revenue of about $91.0 billion, give or take 2%. That means somewhere between $89.2 billion and $92.8 billion, as stated in the Q1 FY2027 earnings release NVIDIA Investor Relations.

Analysts polled by LSEG expected slightly more: $92.17 billion in revenue and $2.10 in earnings per share (a common way to measure a company's profit — it's the company's total profit divided by the number of shares it has outstanding) for Q2 FY2027 CNBC. NVIDIA's forecast sits about $1.17 billion below what Wall Street expected, a gap of roughly 1.3%.

The Q1 results and Q2 outlook were first discussed in NVIDIA's February 25, 2026 press release covering fourth-quarter and full fiscal 2026 results, which also referenced the forward quarter NVIDIA Investor Relations.

NVIDIA only gives revenue forecasts, not profit forecasts. The plus-or-minus 2% range means the company itself is saying revenue could land anywhere in that window. Analysts have to build their own estimates for profit based on assumptions about pricing, product mix, and supply costs.

There are a few things worth keeping in mind if you are watching the Q2 results. First, the jump from Q1's actual revenue ($81.6 billion) to Q2's forecast midpoint ($91.0 billion) is about 11.5% — solid growth, but a slower pace of acceleration than in some earlier quarters. Second, even though the gap between NVIDIA's forecast and Wall Street's expectation is small, it comes at a time when analysts are watching AI spending closely; any shortfall will be read as a warning sign, not a rounding error. Third, because Data Center makes up 92% of revenue, that one segment's growth basically determines the whole company's growth. NVIDIA's other businesses exist, but they are too small to change the story at this scale.

The broader context here is about how people read NVIDIA's forecasts. Wall Street has historically treated NVIDIA's guidance as a lowball — a number the company expects to beat. So when the forecast comes in below what analysts expected, it raises a fair question: is demand for AI chips starting to cool, or is NVIDIA just keeping its expectations modest, as it has done before?

Taken together, the $81.6 billion Q1 result and $91.0 billion Q2 forecast put NVIDIA on pace for roughly $370 billion in annualized revenue by the end of the second quarter, if the forecast holds. Whether the actual number comes in higher — as it often has — or closer to the midpoint will shape how people think about whether the demand for AI chips can keep growing at this pace.