Alexander the Great was said to have cried because there were no more worlds to conquer. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang won’t be shedding such tears anytime soon.
On Wednesday afternoon, Nvidia published its earnings report for the third quarter of 2025. Analysts expected the artificial intelligence chipmaking giant to post above 50% revenue growth. Nvidia delivered and then some, posting third-quarter revenue of $57 billion, a 62% increase compared to last year.
Nvidia delivered and then some, posting third-quarter revenue of $57 billion, a 62% increase compared to last year.
“There’s been a lot of talk about an AI bubble,” Huang said on Nvidia’s earnings call. “From our vantage point, we see something very different.”
“Nvidia’s platform is the singular platform in the world that runs every AI model,” Huang said. “We run them all.”
Nvidia’s business empire hinges on the cutting-edge computer chips it manufactures to power the data centers sprouting up from Silicon Valley to northern Virginia. It has cut deals with nearly every major tech company including Google, Microsoft and Anthropic. Now, it’s setting eyes on ramping up sales of its advanced Blackwell series chip, both for domestic customers and certain foreign governments with the blessing of the Trump administration.
Despite its staggering rise, it’s worth pausing and examining the enormous spending Nvidia took to reach new heights. Questions remain whether these prominent tech firms will profit from all their speculation anytime soon. We should remain wary of a firm near the center of carousel deal-making, as it lends to other companies in the AI boom that reinvest back into Nvidia. In that closed environment, any tremor or financial shock carries a blast radius that could easily ripple across markets, real estate, debt holdings and beyond.
“History suggests when money flows in circles this tight, it’s worth asking whether we’re creating value or just passing IOUs,” financial analyst Ignacio Ramirez Moreno wrote last month as he posted an image of a surge protector plugged into itself.
Nvidia cemented a meteoric achievement in capitalism in October when it reached a $5 trillion market valuation. The previous record holder? Nvidia, when it hit a $4 trillion valuation in July. What first took two decades for the chipmaker to attain only took two months this time in adding $1 trillion as an AI behemoth.
Even as it aspires to scale even higher on the mountain of titanic numbers, Nvidia has been bleeding major investors. Softbank sold off its $5.8 billion stake, which it was channeling toward another big, expensive bet into OpenAI, the producer of ChatGPT.
Then, Peter Thiel’s hedge fund offloaded almost $100 million worth of Nvidia shares in the third quarter, per a regulatory filing. Michael Burry, famous for predicting the subprime mortgage bubble that exploded into the 2008 financial crisis, revealed earlier this month that he was betting against Nvidia.
Michael Burry, famous for predicting the subprime mortgage bubble, revealed that he was betting against Nvidia. The string of developments prodded traders to throw up the barricades and armor themselves against the possibility of an AI bubble that bursts and wreaks havoc on the U.S. economy. For much of this week, financial markets were down on fears of an AI bubble. Notably, Harvard economist Jason Furman crunched the numbers and calculated that U.S. economic growth would have only been 0.1% for the first half of 2025 if not for the eye-popping sums tech firms poured into data centers. That means the health of the U.S. economy is captive to the performance of a handful of tech firms. It’s an unsettling position to be in. Huang, a close ally of President Donald Trump, has long insisted that the frenzy powering AI spending will improve productivity and deliver other benefits. There are others in the tech space who agree. “In the wake of any earth-shaking innovation, there’s going to be a wave of speculative investment. That’s to be expected,” Matt Calkins, Appian CEO and the software company’s founder, told me. “It doesn’t mean it’s a bubble.” Huang and the so-called AI bulls can count on the president to clear the way for tech firms to develop AI with the federal government as an ally. “We will work closely with friends and partners like those in this room to build the largest, most powerful, most innovative AI ecosystem in the world,” Trump said during a Wednesday speech in the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum. Despite the enthusiasm from the White House, some tech executives continue to warn of an impending AI bubble, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “I think no company is going to be immune, including us,” he candidly told the BBC. IMF officials in October also compared the AI spending to the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s. For now, Nvidia carries the flag as it expands its AI empire. It had to surrender its sizable foothold in China earlier this year due to national security concerns from selling advanced equipment that can end up in the arsenal of a rival military. Nvidia stands to make new inroads in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The fanfare will continue for Huang. But even the most powerful kingdoms in the business world can get stretched too thin in the long run.
Joseph Zeballos-Roig
Joseph Zeballos-Roig is a reporter who has covered economic policy and politics for Semafor, Business Insider and Quartz, among other publications. 
