By Adria Cimino
Publication Date: 2026-01-13 23:10:00
Jensen Huang, speaking at CES, said something that supports the idea of ongoing leadership.
Nvidia (NVDA +0.47%) already has scored a major win in artificial intelligence (AI) over the past few years. The company, seeing the opportunity well before the AI boom started, focused on honing its chips to power this revolution. As a result, Nvidia delivered high-powered graphics processing units (GPUs) to the market at just the right time and established itself as the market leader.
The tech giant’s innovation, updating its GPUs on an annual basis, has kept this going. In another smart move, Nvidia hasn’t only focused on chips but also has built out an entire ecosystem of supporting products.
Now, my prediction is that one thing in particular will make Nvidia the biggest winner of the AI race as this story continues to unfold. I’ll give you one hint: It’s not the GPU.
Image source: Getty Images.
Nvidia’s high level of profitability
First, though, let’s quickly consider Nvidia’s path over the past few years. As mentioned, the company has developed a strong presence in the AI market, and this has led to enormous earnings growth. Nvidia has seen revenue surge to records, at more than $130 billion in the most recent full year. And the company has done this at high levels of profitability as we can see by gross margin steadily above 70%. (One quarter early last year was an exception, when Nvidia took a charge for inventory that it wasn’t able to sell to China due to export…
