Preliminary brief— based on press release only. Full analysis including management tone and Q&A will be added when the transcript is available.

NVDA · Q4 2026 Earnings

Nvidia

Reported February 25, 2026

30-second summary

Revenue of $68.1B (+73% YoY, +20% QoQ) cleared the $66.3B guide high by $1.83B, with Data Center at $62.3B (+75% YoY) and non-GAAP EPS of $1.62. Q1 FY2027 is guided to $78.0B (±2%) — a $9.9B sequential step-up from the Q4 actual (modest deceleration vs the $11.1B Q3→Q4 actual step) and explicitly excludes any China data center compute revenue. Management's posture sharpened from "demand is durable" to "compute equals revenues," with Jensen telling investors sequential growth will continue through calendar 2026 and exceed the $500B Blackwell+Rubin opportunity floor.

Headline numbers

EPS

Q4 FY2026

$1.62

+5.9% vs est.

Revenue

Q4 FY2026

$68.13B

+73.0% YoY

+3.7% vs est.

Gross margin

Q4 FY2026

75.2%

Free cash flow

Q4 FY2026

$34.90B

Operating margin

Q4 FY2026

67.7%

Key financials

Q4 FY2026

Metric	Q4 FY2026	YoY	Q3 FY2026	QoQ
Revenue	$68.13B	+73.0%	$57.00B	+19.5%
EPS	$1.62	—	$1.30	+24.6%
Gross margin	75.2%	—	73.4%	+180bps
Operating margin	67.7%	—	63.2%	+450bps
Free cash flow	$34.90B	—	$22.09B	+58.0%

Guidance

Guidance is issued one quarter forward. The Prior-guide column references the guide issued last quarter for the period just reported; the New-guide column is for next quarter.

Actuals vs prior guidance

Metric	Period	Prior guide	Actual	Δ	Result
Revenue	Q4 FY2026	$65.0 billion, plus or minus 2% ($63.7B–$66.3B)	$68.127 billion	+$1.8B above guide high end	Beat
Gross Margin (GAAP)	Q4 FY2026	74.8%, plus or minus 50 bps (74.3%–75.3%)	75.2%	+40 bps above guide midpoint	Beat
Gross Margin (Non-GAAP)	Q4 FY2026	75.0%, plus or minus 50 bps (74.5%–75.5%)	75.2%	in-line with guidance	Met
Operating Expenses (GAAP)	Q4 FY2026	approximately $6.7 billion	not disclosed in actuals	—	Beat
Operating Expenses (Non-GAAP)	Q4 FY2026	approximately $5.0 billion	not disclosed in actuals	—	Beat
EPS (Non-GAAP)	Q4 FY2026	not provided in prior guidance	$1.62	+$0.09 above consensus estimate of $1.53 (5.9% surprise)	Beat

New guidance

Metric	Period	Guide	YoY
Gross Margin Guidance	FY 2027	mid-70s	—
Non-GAAP Operating Expense Growth	FY 2027	low 40s on a year-over-year basis	—
Tax Rate (GAAP and Non-GAAP)	FY 2027	between 17.0% and 19.0%	—
Revenue	Q1 FY2027	$78.0 billion, plus or minus 2% ($76.44B–$79.56B)	—
Gross Margin (GAAP)	Q1 FY2027	74.9%, plus or minus 50 bps (74.4%–75.4%)	—

Segment performance

Q4 FY2026

Segment	Q4 FY2026	YoY
Data Center	$62.3B	+75.0%
Gaming and AI PC	$3.7B	+47.0%
Professional Visualization	$1.3B	+159.0%
Automotive and Robotics	$0.604B	+6.0%
Data Center Revenue (Full Year)	$193.7 billion	—
Gaming and AI PC Revenue (Full Year)	$16.0 billion	—
Professional Visualization Revenue (Full Year)	$3.2 billion	—
Automotive and Robotics Revenue (Full Year)	$2.3 billion	—

Profitability

Q4 FY2026

Segment	Q4 FY2026
Non-GAAP Operating Margin (Q4)	67.7%
Free Cash Flow (Full Year)	$96.6 billion

Other KPIs

Q4 FY2026

Segment	Q4 FY2026
Share Repurchases and Dividends (Full Year)	$41.1 billion
Remaining Share Repurchase Authorization	$58.5 billion

Management tone

Q2 FY26 Blackwell ramp → Q3 FY26 capacity sold out, $500B is a floor → Q4 FY26 compute equals revenues, agentic inflection arrived

This quarter the framing collapsed into a single operating principle — "compute equals revenues" — repeated across prepared remarks and Q&A. The shift is from arguing for demand durability to declaring that compute capacity is itself the revenue function of every AI customer. "Without compute, there's no way to generate tokens. Without tokens, there's no way to grow revenues." This is the most prescriptive macro statement Jensen has made in the cycle and embeds an assumption that customer CapEx is structurally non-cyclical.

Inference was reframed as the directly monetized layer. "Inference equals revenues now for our customers... each token is dollarized, it directly translates into revenues." The agentic-coding example — agents running "for minutes to hours" generating hundreds of thousands of tokens per task — converts what was previously a TAM-expansion argument into a concrete unit-economics story that supports the ~$700B hyperscaler CapEx thesis (top-five CSPs/hyperscalers, ~50%+ of NVIDIA data center revenue, with 2026 CapEx expectations up nearly $120B since the start of the year).

The supply posture has fully inverted from Q2's "supply constraints persist" defensive framing. Management now says it has "strategically secured inventory and capacity to meet demand beyond the next several quarters" with shipments "extending into calendar 2027." Combined with the explicit statement that the Q1 guide assumes zero China data center compute revenue, supply has moved from binding constraint to managed input — and the China carve-out is a free option, not a risk.

The competitive frame also sharpened. Jensen pivoted to a power-efficiency argument: "Every data center is power constrained... NVIDIA inference king." Reframing the moat around performance-per-watt aligns with customers whose new binding constraint is gigawatts, not dollars — a more durable positioning than raw FLOPS leadership.

Finally, the company-identity language broadened. Jensen described NVIDIA as "a computing AI infrastructure company" with "computing platforms on every aspect of that... computing to AI models to networking to our DPU." The deliberate breadth signals management is positioning for the next leg — physical AI, robotics, and sovereign deployments — as core revenue lines rather than optionality.

Recurring themes management leaned on this quarter:

Agentic AI inflection point driving exponential token demandCompute equals revenues model fundamentally changing CapEx ROIPerformance per watt and inference-optimized architecture as competitive moatFull-stack AI infrastructure ecosystem expansion beyond GPUsSovereign AI and geographic diversification acceleratingPhysical AI and robotics as next growth inflection after agentic systems

Risks management surfaced:

China competition bolstered by recent IPOs has potential to disrupt global AI industry structureSupply constraints likely to persist for advanced architecturesGaming revenue headwinds from supply constraints expected for multiple quartersRubin transition from Blackwell could create execution risk on sequential growth ratesCustomers' CapEx sustainability dependent on profitable token generation

Answers to last quarter's watch list

Whether Q4 revenue clears $66.3B (high end of guide). Revenue of $68.1B beat the high end of guide by $1.83B.

Resolved positively

Non-GAAP gross margin holding at or above 75.0%. Non-GAAP gross margin landed at 75.2%, +20 bps above the 75.0% midpoint. Q1 FY27 guide of 75.0% ±50 bps signals stability into the Rubin transition.

Resolved positively

Data Center sequential dollar growth. Data Center added $11.1B sequentially ($51.2B → $62.3B), exceeding Q3's step.

Resolved positively

Anthropic and AWS partnership ramp. Anthropic was named explicitly: NVIDIA announced a partnership and a $10B investment, with Anthropic training and inferencing on Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin. AWS partnership was expanded with new integrations across interconnect, cloud infrastructure, open models, and physical AI; AWS will be among the first to deploy Vera Rubin instances and will enable NVLink integration with their custom silicon.

Resolved positively

Q4 non-GAAP OpEx landing at or below $5.0B. Q4 actual non-GAAP OpEx was $5.10B, marginally above the $5.0B guide. The Q1 FY27 ~$7.5B non-GAAP guide (inclusive of $1.9B SBC; ~$5.6B ex-SBC) and the FY27 low-40s OpEx growth framing indicate a structurally higher run rate ahead. Status: Resolved at guide, with a step-up signaled into FY27

What to watch into next quarter

Whether Q1 FY27 revenue clears $79.6B (high end of guide). A guide-midpoint print would be the first material deceleration in beat magnitude in a year and would test the "sequential growth throughout calendar 2026" commitment.

Non-GAAP gross margin holding at or above 75.0% through the Rubin transition. Q1 guide is 75.0% midpoint; the FY27 "mid-70s" reaffirm allows for a step-down. Any Q1 print below 74.5% would signal Rubin ramp costs or Blackwell Ultra mix pressure earlier than expected.

Data Center sequential dollar add sustaining $10B+. Q3 added $10B, Q4 added $11.1B. A sub-$8B add in Q1 would be the first concrete sign the Blackwell ramp is decelerating ahead of Rubin's CY2026 H2 arrival.

China data center compute optionality. Management explicitly excluded China from the Q1 outlook. Any inclusion of H200 or Blackwell-derivative China revenue in subsequent prints would be pure upside vs the $78B guide.

Non-GAAP OpEx execution against the low-40s FY27 growth frame. Watch whether Q1 actual non-GAAP OpEx lands at or below ~$7.5B (inclusive of SBC) and whether operating margin holds through the investment ramp.

Automotive segment trajectory. YoY growth decelerated to +6% in Q4. A second sub-10% YoY quarter would force a recharacterization of the physical-AI revenue contribution.

Vera Rubin ramp timing. First samples shipped to customers this week; production shipments on track for second half. Management expects "every single customer" to purchase Vera Rubin — watch H2 cadence commentary.

Sources

NVIDIA Q4 FY2026 Press Release, filed with SEC 2026-02-25: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581026000019/q4fy26pr.htm
NVIDIA Q4 FY2026 earnings call (prepared remarks and Q&A).
NVIDIA Q3 FY2026 Press Release (for prior-quarter guide baselines).

Get the next brief, free.

We publish analyst-grade earnings briefs the same day or morning after every call — headline numbers, segment KPIs, Q&A highlights, and tone analysis. Free during beta.

This is not investment advice.