Yesterday, Nvidia turned in a good "report card", but its stock price collapsed, falling 8% after hours.

The higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment? Data shows that Nvidia's second quarter revenue reached a new high, exceeding expectations with a 122% growth. The third quarter revenue guidance also exceeded market expectations with a maximum growth of 83%. However, this revenue guidance did not meet the most optimistic three-digit expectations, and it was the first time in six quarters that it was below 100%.

During the earnings conference call, CEO Jensen Huang remained optimistic about the future of AI. However, his optimism did not save the stock from its downward trend. Cracks began to form, and the market became concerned about Nvidia's slowing growth, Blackwell chip production delays, and the sustainability of the AI boom.

Blackwell ships in the fourth quarter, and CEO Jensen Huang remains optimistic, but the stock still falls.

During the earnings conference call after Nvidia's financial report was released, CEO Jensen Huang maintained an optimistic outlook on the future of AI. He believes that the development of generative AI is accelerating, and the company is just beginning to reshape the global datacenter, which is a trillion dollar opportunity.

Regarding the highly anticipated progress and demand for Blackwell, Nvidia stated that the market demand for Hopper chip remains strong and there are high expectations for Blackwell. Previously, there were reports that a large number of Blackwell shipments may be delayed until the first quarter of next year.

Jensen Huang said, "We have already started mass production of Blackwell and will ship in the fourth quarter. We will generate billions of dollars in revenue from Blackwell." However, Huang did not provide an answer as to whether the billions of dollars in revenue are incremental.

As the telephone meeting was held, Nvidia's stock price continued to fall, dropping by 8% after hours, and still fell by nearly 7% as of the close. Analysts believe that if this trend continues, it may be the worst performance of Nvidia's stock after the earnings report in two and a half years.

During the conference call, some analysts also asked a question that many people are concerned about: Can the significant investment in the AI field over the past year and a half bring sufficient returns?

In the debate over capital expenditure and return on investment, Nvidia vaguely stated that users investing in Nvidia's infrastructure can immediately gain returns, and this is currently the highest ROI infrastructure and computing infrastructure that can help customers save money.

Whether Nvidia will provide clearer guidance on the return on investment (ROI) indicator, which will influence the long-term confidence of the market in betting on AI by technology giants.

Is the revenue growth slowing down, hitting a ceiling?

In the past two years, the strong sales of Nvidia's graphics processors for AI data centers have brought significant growth to the company's revenue and profits, but such rapid growth is slowing down.

On August 28, the Wall Street Journal commented that while Nvidia's overall performance remains strong, and it has repeatedly exceeded its own and Wall Street's expectations. However, in the recent few quarters, Nvidia's growth rate has started to slow down, with less significant growth compared to last year's brilliance, and it's becoming increasingly difficult to exceed expectations by a large margin each quarter.

Compared to the first quarter, Nvidia's Q2 gross margin and data center sales growth rate have declined. The company’s Q2 adjusted gross margin was 75.7%, a decrease of 3.2 percentage points compared to the previous quarter.

Third Bridge analyst Lucas Keh stated in a report that Nvidia has been lowering the price of its H100 series, which he believes is one of the potential reasons for the decline in gross margin on a month-on-month basis.

In addition, the data shows that Nvidia's year-on-year and month-on-month revenue growth rates have both declined.

Daniel Newman, CEO of Futurum Group, commented on Nvidia's financial report, calling it a "solid quarter, but any guidance below the expected upper limit could cause some concerns and anxiety.

"I believe we are seeing the expected peak, and the market's buy-in on Nvidia stocks is very strong. Unless there is guidance or unexpected announcements that exceed expectations, there is not much upside," he said. "The demand for Hopper should allow the company to safely surpass its guidance, although the guidance is higher than market consensus, I still consider it conservative."