Nvidia added roughly $453B in market value in one day, the largest one-day gain recorded in the U.S.
Revenue more than doubled.
But Nvidia also warned that memory pricing has become “extreme.”
AI demand is strong. The cost of meeting that demand is getting harder to ignore.
Nvidia’s Growth Comes With Rising Costs
Revenue rose 106% year over year to $96.2B. Nvidia guided to $108B next quarter.
No other Magnificent 7 company in the comparison came close to that growth rate.
But memory costs are rising faster than expected. Nvidia said supply could remain constrained through FY28.
Scarce memory means higher costs, even as sales grow at an exceptional rate.
Nvidia also has disclosed positions in Intel, SpaceX, CoreWeave, Coherent, Nokia, Synopsys, Nebius, and Generate Biomedicines.
That gives it exposure to chip design, cloud computing, networking, telecom, and drug research. It also increases Nvidia’s exposure to the wider AI buildout.
Strong Results Produced Very Different Reactions
Marvell reported Q2 revenue of $2.74B, slightly above the $2.71B estimate. Data center revenue rose 46% to $2.2B, and Q3 guidance came in above expectations.
The stock still fell 5% after recovering from a 10% overnight decline. It had already risen more than 180% this year.
The business delivered strong numbers. The stock had priced in more.
Salesforce gained more than 22% after a strong quarter, a higher outlook, and its Anthropic “Claudeforce” partnership.
CrowdStrike rose more than 20% after beating estimates and raising guidance. ARR reached $5.84B, up 25%, while record net new ARR rose 51% to $333M.
Palo Alto Networks reported next-generation security ARR of $8.1B, up 60%. CEO Nikesh Arora said advances at the AI frontier have increased the urgency around cybersecurity.
The Nasdaq gained 1.6% on Thursday. Technology rose 3.4% and was the only positive S&P sector.
This was a technology rally, not a broad market rally.
IREN’s AI Cloud Transition Is Expensive
IREN reported Q4 revenue of $137.2M.
AI Cloud revenue more than doubled from $33.6M to $70.5M and passed Bitcoin mining revenue for the first time. Full-year AI Cloud revenue reached $128.8M, nearly 8 times the prior year.
But adjusted EBITDA fell to $19.2M from $59.5M.
IREN recorded a $684.0M Q4 net loss, including $450.4M in impairments. Its full-year net loss was $702.6M, including $638.8M in impairments.
Those impairments were mainly tied to decommissioning Bitcoin mining hardware as sites are converted for AI Cloud growth.
IREN says operating ARR is $1B and capacity is largely sold out. But ARR is not GAAP revenue, and recognized revenue may be materially lower.
The company has $7.6B in cash, with cash and committed financing totaling $14B. New GPU financing totals $2.8B and funds 90% of capex, while customer prepayments cover 45 to 55% of GPU capex.
The AI Cloud business is scaling. The accounting results show how expensive the shift has been.
AI Capacity Is Being Bought Years Ahead
Anthropic agreed to pay $45B for 460MW of capacity under a 6-year commitment at Nscale’s West Virginia data center.
The deployment is planned for late next year using Nvidia Vera Rubin systems. Google and Microsoft were also reportedly in talks for the capacity.
The New York Times reported that Meta could spend up to $10B annually on Anthropic AI. Meta has used Anthropic models to help power and test its upcoming personal AI agent, Hatch.
Meta is also testing robots from ABB, Kinova, and Watney Robotics to swap cables, reset servers, and inspect data center equipment.
The spending covers both computing capacity and the work required to operate it.
Power Is Becoming the Physical Limit
Elon Musk said power and cooling are currently slightly more restrictive for AI than chips.
The speaker cited roughly 2,000 GW of proposed U.S. power generation waiting in interconnection queues, with a median wait of roughly 5 years.
Texas has a 474 gigawatt queue of large loads. Data centers account for 90%, and some projects face waits of up to 12 years.
The speaker said Musk bought about 35 gas turbines to power xAI’s Colossus supercomputer in Memphis rather than wait for the grid.
China has the opposite problem in the speaker’s account. It has more electricity but remains restricted from Nvidia’s latest chips.
The speaker also described a risk scenario: cheaper Chinese models could squeeze OpenAI and Anthropic. If those companies cut future spending already committed to cloud providers, the hyperscalers could suffer.
That is a scenario, not a reported outcome.
AI May Be Creating New Retail Demand
Evercore found that 57% of Alexa AI users bought products they previously did not know about.
It raised its Amazon price target to $355 after finding this initial evidence that agentic AI is adding to retail demand.
AWS ARR has increased from $64B in 2021 to $169B today.
Amazon has spent hundreds of billions on new products and spare warehouse capacity. The source frames the outcome starkly: Amazon eventually reaches $5T in revenue, or that capital was burned.
Inflation and Growth Are Pulling in Different Directions
Fed Chair Kevin Warsh called price stability the Fed’s “predominant focus.” He said high inflation is “concerning” and warned that stubborn inflation could push the Fed toward a rate hike.
July PCE inflation reached 3.7% year over year, slightly above the 3.6% forecast. Core inflation remained at 3.3%.
Markets raised the implied chance of a September rate increase to roughly 58%, from about 35% the prior day. The 2-year Treasury yield rose about 12 basis points, and gold fell below $4,500 per ounce.
The growth readings were mixed.
Chicago PMI dropped to 47.1 in August from 57.6 in July. New orders fell sharply while prices paid increased.
Weekly jobless claims fell to 203,000, below the 208,000 forecast, and consumer spending was revised higher.
Business activity weakened in the Chicago survey. Jobless claims and consumer spending remained firmer.
Apple, SpaceX, and Tesla Added Smaller Signals
Apple raised Apple TV’s monthly U.S. price to $14.99 from $12.99 and its annual price to $119 from $99. Apple One Individual increased to $21.95 from $19.95.
SpaceX won a U.S. Space Force contract to expand Starshield service aboard military aircraft. JAC Farmer said there were no other competitors.
Tesla’s registered autonomous fleet in Texas reached 37% of Waymo’s fleet. A Cybercab was also reported driving in Austin without a driver or safety monitor.
Oil, Debt, and Low Volume Add Market Risk
Trump said an oil agreement secured majority U.S. control over 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan reserves. He said it would more than double American oil reserves and lower gasoline prices.
France’s presidential race is putting government debt concerns back in focus, with investors across Europe watching.
George Gammon cited Nvidia’s customer concentration, with four companies generating 50% of revenue, along with its equity and balance-sheet exposure across the AI ecosystem.
His near-term base case is for Nvidia to rise well above 300 and probably above 350. His base case for the following 2 to 3 years is a fall to around 40 or 50. He does not know how high the stock could rise first.
Kalshi reported that the S&P 500 had its lowest weekly trading volume in more than 20 years. Simply Probe called low volume combined with prices near record highs a “rally on fumes,” leaving the market more vulnerable to bad news.
The open question is whether AI spending will produce incremental profit or a new business that scales quickly enough to keep pace with capex.