Giant chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) beat its already lofty fourth-quarter earnings expectations, boosting the broader equity markets and artificial intelligence (AI) - related tokens.
Nvidia said on Wednesday that its fourth-quarter earnings per share were $5.16, beating the average analyst estimate of $4.59 per share, according to FactSet data. The chipmaker also posted revenue of $22.1 billion, which came in higher than Wall Street's expectation of $20.4 billion.
The company also forecast first-quarter revenue of $24 billion, beating analysts' estimate of $22.2 billion.
Read more: Nvidia's Hotly Anticipated Earnings May 'Trigger' Bitcoin and Crypto Correction, Analyst Says
“Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point. Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.
AI-related crypto tokens such as OCEAN, RNDR and FET also rose on the news of Nvidia's big beat.
The beat comes as shares of the maker of chips that have fueled the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution surged more than 200% over the last year, taking the market cap of the company to nearly $1.7 trillion at one point, topping the value of tech giants Amazon and Google. The rally has been so hot that Goldman Sachs even called it "the most important stock on planet earth."
The shares of the chipmaker rose nearly 7% in post-market trading on Wednesday, while S&P 500 futures gained slightly and bitcoin {{BTC}} was down 1.8%.
