NVIDIA Earnings: Revenue, Data Center, and What the Print Means for AI Capex
Consensus puts NVIDIA revenue at $91.85 billion this quarter, nine tenths of one percent above the company’s own guide. The quarter after is where the argument is.
Published August 13, 2026 · Last updated August 13, 2026 · This page is updated through the cycle. NVIDIA reports Q2 FY27 after the close on Wednesday, August 26; the print and the Q3 FY27 outlook are appended here the same evening.
The Setup
| Q2 FY27 Consensus Revenue$91.85B+96.5% YoY | Q2 FY27 Consensus EPS$2.08+98.4% YoY | Company Guide$91.0B± 2%, excludes China | Q3 FY27 Consensus Revenue$103.1BThe forward number |
NVIDIA reports fiscal Q2 2027 after the close on Wednesday, August 26. Forty analysts have revenue at $91.85 billion and earnings at $2.08 a share. Both figures are roughly double the same quarter last year, when the company did $46.74 billion and $1.05.
What stands out is not the growth rate. It is the spread between the street and the company. NVIDIA guided to $91.0 billion plus or minus two percent. Consensus sits 0.9% above that midpoint. Across forty analysts, the collective view is that management’s own forecast is very slightly conservative and no more.
That is close to a repeat of last quarter. In Q1 FY27, consensus was 1.0% above the guide midpoint. The company then reported $81.6 billion, beating its own midpoint by 4.6% and the street by 5.5%.
Consensus figures from yfinance, pulled August 12, 2026, 40 analysts. Guide figures from NVIDIA’s Q1 FY27 outlook statement issued May 20, 2026. Refresh consensus the morning of the print before publishing.
The Streak Is Intact and the Margin Is Shrinking
Before the outside evidence, the company’s own record. NVIDIA publishes a revenue outlook with every release, so each quarter can be scored against the number management itself put out three months earlier. Thirteen straight quarters have come in above it, and the size of the beat has been compressing the whole way.
The streak is intact and the margin is shrinking: +22.8% in Q2 FY24 to +4.6% in Q1 FY27.
Guide midpoints from the Outlook section of each prior quarter’s Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1; actuals from each quarter’s own release. Q1 FY26 reflects an H20 export-license impact.
HoverTap any quarter for the guide, the reported number, and the beat.
NVIDIA has reported revenue above its own outlook for thirteen consecutive quarters. What has changed is the size of the beat.
Three years ago the margin was enormous: 22.8% above the guide midpoint in Q2 FY24, 13.3% the quarter after. The recent run is far tighter. The last five quarters have landed between 2.5% and 5.6% above guide, against an average of 8.2% across the full thirteen.
That compression is not deterioration. It is what happens when a company becomes large enough and well enough covered that the sell side can model it accurately. But it does mean the asymmetry has changed. A 5% beat against guide is now the base case rather than the upside case, and the reaction has increasingly keyed off the forward outlook rather than the printed quarter.
The Customers Already Reported
Most of this quarter is already on the record, filed by other companies. Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta spent a combined $166.0 billion on capital expenditures in the June quarter, up 87% from a year ago and 27% from the March quarter alone. Over the ten quarters since the start of 2024, combined hyperscaler capex has risen 272%.
| Company | Q1 2026 Capex | Q2 2026 Capex | Q/Q |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon (AMZN) | $44.20B | $54.21B | +22.6% |
| Alphabet (GOOG) | $35.67B | $44.92B | +25.9% |
| Microsoft (MSFT) | $30.88B | $35.80B | +15.9% |
| Meta (META) | $19.84B | $31.08B | +56.7% |
| Combined | $130.60B | $166.01B | +27.1% |
The ten-quarter shape is the argument. Each band is one buyer; the line on top is the combined total.
Q2 2026 combined hyperscaler capex: $166.0B (+87% YoY, +27% QoQ). Ten-quarter growth: +272%.
Source: each issuer’s Q2 2026 Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1 cash flow statement (Microsoft figures from FY26 Q4). Capex definitions vary slightly by issuer.
HoverTap any quarter for the per-company split and the combined total.
Line-item definitions: Amazon, purchases of property and equipment (gross); Alphabet, purchases of property and equipment; Microsoft, additions to property and equipment (FY26 Q4); Meta, capital expenditures including principal payments on finance leases. Capex definitions vary slightly by issuer.
Meta drove the largest single swing, going from $19.8 billion to $31.1 billion in one quarter and narrowing its full-year outlook upward to a range of $130 to $145 billion. Amazon remained the largest spender in absolute terms at $54.2 billion.
The lead time between hyperscaler capex commitments and accelerated-compute supplier revenue has historically run one to two quarters. That relationship held cleanly last quarter: $130.6 billion of Q1 hyperscaler capex showed up as a $75.2 billion Data Center quarter on the supplier side.
Capex commitments do not flow one for one into any single supplier’s revenue. Hyperscalers spend on real estate, power, networking and CPU servers alongside accelerators. But when the four largest buyers of compute collectively spend $166 billion in ninety days, the direction is not ambiguous.
The Q3 Revenue Guide Is the Number That Matters
Consensus revenue for the October quarter (Q3 FY27) is $103.1 billion. Against the $91.85 billion expected for the quarter being reported, that implies growth is still expanding rather than compressing.
At this scale, that is unusual. Year-over-year growth rates on a base this large normally decay, because the comparison gets harder every quarter. A company doing $90 billion a quarter that is still accelerating is describing a demand curve that has not yet found its ceiling.
There are two readings, and Wednesday’s guide picks one.
- Hyperscaler capex is pulling forward faster than the customer-side filings suggest. The 27% quarter-over-quarter jump in Q2 spending is consistent with this.
- NVIDIA is capturing a larger share of total accelerated-compute spend than the customers’ own disclosures reveal, which would mean the supplier-side number now leads the customer-side filings rather than following them.
Either way, the forward guide is the release. The quarter being reported was largely written three months ago by other people’s cash flow statements.
The China Line
One detail in the guide that the headline consensus number does not carry: NVIDIA’s $91.0 billion outlook assumes zero Data Center compute revenue from China.
That is a deliberate exclusion, not a forecast. It means any change to that assumption, in either direction, moves the number without anything else about demand changing. Watch whether the Q3 guide carries the same exclusion.
What to Watch Wednesday Night
- The Q3 FY27 guide against $103.1 billion consensus. This is the release. A guide at or above consensus says the capex curve still compounds; a guide below marks the first inflection in the cycle.
- Data Center revenue as a share of total. It was $75.2 billion of $81.6 billion last quarter, roughly 92%.
- The beat versus the $91.0 billion guide midpoint. Whether it lands near the recent 4 to 5% cadence, above it, or below.
- Any change to the China assumption in the forward guide.
- Gross margin, which has been the quiet variable while revenue absorbs all the attention.
Sources. NVIDIA Q1 FY27 results, reported May 20, 2026. Consensus estimates from yfinance, pulled August 12, 2026, 40 analysts. Hyperscaler capital expenditures from each issuer’s Q2 2026 Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1 cash flow statement, with Microsoft figures from its FY26 Q4 release. Capex definitions vary slightly by issuer. All figures in U.S. dollars. This article is market analysis citing public sources. It does not reference any REX Shares or T-REX fund and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
