Nvidia's Rubin Chips Ready for Market Entry, Q2 Revenue Surges 55%

Nvidia, a leading technology company, has made significant strides in its Rubin architecture chip project. Following the announcement in late August that the Rubin architecture chips would begin mass production next year, Nvidia's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) provided an update on the project's progress during the Goldman Sachs Technology Conference on September 8. The CFO revealed that the Rubin chips are already in preparation for market entry, with six chips in the Rubin architecture having already been taped out.

The CFO also highlighted that Nvidia's data center revenue for the second quarter of the 2026 fiscal year includes contributions from the Blackwell architecture's GB200, B200, and the Blackwell Ultra architecture's GB300. The GB200 and GB300 are expected to continue shipping into the third quarter. Looking ahead, Nvidia has identified a demand for several thousand megawatts related to the Rubin architecture before it enters the market.

Reflecting on the past year, the CFO noted that the transition from the Blackwell architecture to the Blackwell Ultra architecture has been smooth. The discussion has shifted from the transition between architectures to the ongoing demand for computational power across pre-training, post-training, and inference stages. The CFO emphasized that the demand for computational resources, particularly from inference models, remains substantial.

During the conference, the CFO discussed the capital expenditure on data center infrastructure over the next five years. This discussion aims to help the entire ecosystem understand the market's significance. The CFO pointed out that the transition to a new computing platform, which has been in use for decades, is underway. The actions of the top four cloud service providers and the growing importance of AI factories and sovereign AI needs indicate a capital expenditure of over 3 trillion dollars.

On August 27, Nvidia released its second-quarter financial results for the 2026 fiscal year. The company reported revenue of 46.7 billion dollars, surpassing market expectations of 46.1 billion dollars and representing a 55% year-over-year increase. Net income, measured under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), was 26.4 billion dollars, a 60% increase from the previous year. Earnings per share (EPS) were 1.04 dollars, exceeding market expectations of 1.01 dollars.

However, the gross margin for the quarter decreased to 72.4%, down from 75.2% in the same period last year. For the third quarter, Nvidia expects revenue to reach 54 billion dollars, with a gross margin projected to be between 73.3% and 73.5%.

In related news, Broadcom, a competitor in the semiconductor industry, reported strong third-quarter financial results and provided a robust outlook for the fourth quarter. The company's AI chip business is expected to continue its rapid growth. During the earnings call, the CEO announced a 10 billion dollar custom chip order from an unnamed new client, which industry insiders speculate is OpenAI. This development suggests that Broadcom will directly compete with Nvidia in the AI hardware market.

Industry analysts note that while increased competition from Broadcom and OpenAI may impact Nvidia's market share, the rapid expansion of the AI market ensures that Nvidia can maintain stable growth. The focus now shifts to how Broadcom and OpenAI will execute their plans, as the AI market continues to evolve and present new opportunities for all players involved.