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Nvidia will report earnings on Wednesday, with investors focused on Blackwell demand impact from DeepSeek.
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DeepSeek’s AI model raised concerns about reduced GPU sales when it debuted last month.
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Most analysts expect Nvidia to beat earnings estimates and potentially raise guidance.
Nvidia has a high bar to clear when it reports fourth-quarter earnings after the closing bell on Wednesday.
As the world’s second-largest company, Nvidia will have to prove to investors that demand for its next-generation Blackwell chip continues to be strong, and that the company won’t be negatively impacted by the jarring debut of China’s DeepSeek AI model.
Last month, DeepSeek raised concerns among investors that data centers will not need as much computing power as they had initially expected, which would result in fewer GPU sales for Nvidia.
However, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has argued that DeepSeek’s efficiency gains will only accelerate the speed at which AI is adopted and advanced.
According to data from Bloomberg, the average analyst estimate suggests Nvidia will grow its revenue by 73% to $38.2 billion in the quarter, compared to year-ago revenue of about $20 billion.
Here’s what Wall Street is saying about Nvidia’s upcoming earnings report.
Analysts at Mizuho said that while they expect Nvidia to report an “in-line” earnings report, they also expect some “growing pains.”
“Our checks indicate that while JanQ DC is expected in-line, AprilQ could be more flattish as near-term ramps remain modest given GB200 power/cooling requirements,” Mizuho said in a note last week.
DC refers to Nvidia’s data center revenue, which encompasses its GPU chip sales.
For Mizuho, the focus is on the second half of the year, as it expects a “strong” Blackwell ramp to make up for any lost revenues in the first half of the year.
“We continue to see NVDA driving strong industry leadership with its CUDA ecosystem, on top of its integrated HW platform where it has strong customer relationships,” Mizuho said, adding that it expects key customers Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet to turbocharger their Blackwell GPU purchases later this year.
Mizuho rates Nvidia at “Outperform” with a $175 price target.
Analysts at Wedbush said the big question going into earnings is whether it will be another “$2 billion beat and $2 billion raise” quarter. The firm thinks they can pull it off.
“We expect another robust performance and ‘clear beat and raise special’ from Nvidia that should calm the nerves of investors as Jensen lays out the massive demand drivers from Blackwell and AI Capex in the field fueling this 4th Industrial Revolution,” Wedbush said.
Wedbush said that based on its channel checks, a single AI enterprise deployment has not slowed or changed because of DeepSeek.
“No customer wants to ‘lose their place in line’ as it is described to us for Nvidia’s next gen chips,” Wedbush said.
Analysts at Bank of America expect Nvidia to beat analyst estimates, and said it expects the company’s calendar-year 2025 data center revenue to surge 60% year-over-year.
“Despite DeepSeek’s supposed “revolutionary” optimizations, there is no change thus far to spending intentions at NVDA large customers including Microsoft and Meta,” Vivek Arya, analyst at Bank of America said in a note earlier this month.
Arya said that optimizations in hardware and software are “key parts of computing,” so he doesn’t expect DeepSeek efficiencies to lead to a reduction in sales for the company.
Looking past earnings, Arya said Nvidia’s GTC conference in March is the next big catalyst. That’s where the investor focus for Nvidia could shift away from Blackwell and toward its next-generation products, including the Rubin GPU and solutions for autonomous robots.
Bank of America rates Nvidia at a “Buy” with a $190 price target.
Nvidia is likely to meet fourth-quarter revenue expectations and raise its first-quarter guidance “amid a significant ramp-up in its Blackwell GPUs,” Kunjan Sobhani, tech analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, said last week.
Sobhani said Nvidia has overcome some recent supply-chain delays and concerns about hyperscaler demand, as evidenced by its stock price fully recovering the DeepSeek losses.
“Initial shipments to key customers began in 4Q and will increase through 1Q26,” Sobhani said. “Increased capital-spending guidance from Meta, Microsoft, Amazon Web Services and Google aids our confidence in near-term sales.”
Encouragingly, Sobhani said Nivida’s profit margins could “return to the mid-70s” in the second half of the year after declining due to the Blackwell production ramp.
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