英伟达Q2财报营收962亿美元超预期，CFO指引明年销售增长70%

FirstFT: Nvidia results beat Wall Street expectations
Good morning and welcome to FirstFT. In today’s newsletter:
AI chipmaker Nvidia projects 70% sales growth next year
Harvard Business School weighed European outpost
France replaces Italy as European bond investors’ biggest worry
The eastern German state the AfD thinks it can win
You can listen to today’s top news stories in the FT News Briefing podcast.
Nvidia boosted its forecast for AI chip sales next year as the $5tn tech giant tried to rebut criticisms that its raft of investments and financing deals with customers amounted to risky “circular financing”.
The world’s most valuable company yesterday reported revenue of $96.2bn for the quarter to the end of July and projected sales of about $108bn for the current quarter, beating Wall Street expectations.
Chief financial officer Colette Kress said Nvidia expected strong growth to continue, forecasting a 70 per cent rise in sales next year. She said customer demand was set to double but revenue would be limited by supply constraints. Nvidia shares were up more than 4 per cent in after-hours trading.
The robust earnings report comes as the chip group faces greater investor scrutiny over how it has deployed its vast balance sheet to help its customers fund their building of AI infrastructure.
This month, Nvidia assembled a consortium of Wall Street investors to provide $500bn in chip financing for its clients and agreed a more than $100bn backstop for an OpenAI data centre in Ohio.
These come on top of investments in many of its biggest customers and revenue-sharing and backstop deals tied to its chips. Michael Acton has more from San Francisco.
AI ‘capture’: Many elite economists have started collaborating with tech companies or even working for them directly, a development that comes with risks, warns Soumaya Keynes.
Here’s what else we’re keeping tabs on today:
US: The Jackson Hole economic policy symposium begins with central bankers, policymakers, academics and economists gathering to discuss economic issues. It runs until Saturday.
Results: Dollar Tree and Pernod Ricard report earnings.
Five more top stories
1. Exclusive: Harvard Business School explored teaching MBA students in Europe and Canada for the first time after US President Donald Trump’s administration last year threatened to stop international students getting visas to attend its courses. Andrew Jack has the full report.
2. France is replacing Italy as the focal point for market concerns about European debt sustainability, investors have said, as Paris faces tricky budget negotiations next month. The country was a “perfect storm” for bond investors, an analyst said, given the combination of “growth risk, political risk, fiscal risk”.
3. Exclusive: Israel is considering expelling British and potentially other European officials from a US-led co-ordination centre for postwar Gaza in retaliation for criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies in the Palestinian territories. Read the full story.
4. More than $80bn has been wiped off the value of bitcoin treasury companies since the middle of last year, after the crypto-buying craze that transformed their business models failed to boost their share prices.
5. Exclusive: Thames Water’s creditors are at an impasse with the UK government, with lenders demanding Prime Minister Andy Burnham clarify any potential renationalisation before they plough in another £2bn needed as soon as October to keep the beleaguered utility afloat.
The eastern German state the AfD thinks it can win
Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been rattling the country’s established political parties for years, but so far it has not held power on a significant scale. That may be about to change after voters in Saxony-Anhalt go to the ballot box next weekend, as polls suggest the AfD could win more than 40 per cent at the state elections. The result could put candidate Ulrich Siegmund within reach of being able to form a single-party government, an outcome that would have consequences beyond the state, write Laura Pitel and Anne-Sylvaine Chassany.
We’re also reading . . .
Jane Street: The secretive firm has grown to be one of the largest financial groups in the US with enviable returns. But as its size and risk appetite increase, it may need to change its ways.
SOS bracelet: A City of London trader is developing a wearable device that uses AI to try to protect women and children identified as being at risk of domestic abuse.
Return to office: Junior consultants are being called to work on-site more frequently to sharpen their human skills as AI takes over technical work.
Frozen assets plan: EU countries are urging Brussels to renew efforts to leverage immobilised Russian sovereign assets to fund Ukraine.
Chart of the day
UK homebuyers looking to put down a deposit on a London property need to stump up, on average, an extra £35,500 since January, as rising mortgage rates in the first half of the year weighed on their buying power.
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Take a break from the news . . .
Best-selling British author Louisa Young has written 16 books, including My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You, shortlisted for the 2011 Costa Novel Award. Having taken on the mantle of her late aunt’s Cazalet Chronicles, the writer knows only too well how a home can shape a story.
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