Nvidia’s Jensen Huang said he expects the artificial intelligence boom will last well into next year and made what could be the largest single bet yet in the tech sector to back up his optimism.
“We have excellent visibility through the year and into next year, and we’re already planning the next generation infrastructure with leading and data center builders,” Huang told investors on a conference call. Huang’s move to buy back stock when it is more expensive than it has ever been tops the bets that even other large tech companies are making on AI, but comes as its price-to-earnings multiple fell to about 43 from 60 after analysts upgraded their earnings estimates in May.
Demand for the chips has given Nvidia the cash for the investor payday. The company reported its adjusted gross margins nearly doubled to 71.2% in its second quarter, when most semiconductor companies have gross margins between 50% and 60%. To be sure, some analysts don’t see unlimited demand. Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis said many tech companies are spending heavily on Nvidia graphics processing units this year before determining how they will actually make money off products developed with those chips.