The AI chip giant reports $39.3 billion in quarterly revenue, proving its strategy to navigate export controls with alternative products is paying off.
SANTA CLARA, Calif. - Nvidia has once again shattered market expectations, reporting a staggering $39.3 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2025. The results, announced on February 26, 2025, signal a decisive victory for the chipmaker's strategy to navigate tightening U.S. export controls. By developing alternative data center products compatible with regulatory standards, Nvidia has managed to sustain a critical foothold in the Chinese market while riding a global wave of artificial intelligence demand.
The earnings report comes at a pivotal moment in the "chip war" between Washington and Beijing. Despite initial fears that banning high-performance GPUs like the H100 would cripple Nvidia's Asian revenue streams, the company has successfully pivoted. According to The New York Times, while sales in China have been cut significantly from their peak, they have stabilized at approximately 15 percent of total revenue-a recovery made possible by the introduction of compliant chips that do not require a specific export license.
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The path to this quarter's success began in late 2023, following the U.S. government's expansion of export regulations aimed at curbing China's military AI capabilities. These rules set strict performance thresholds for chips sold to foreign adversaries. In response, Nvidia moved quickly to re-engineer its offerings.
According to The Motley Fool, management confirmed the development of alternative data center platforms specifically for the China market that fall within permissible limits. This agility allowed the company to rebound from a low point in early 2024, when China represented only a "mid-single digit percentage" of data center revenue, as reported by Fortune. Today's stabilizing figures suggest that the "H20" and other compliant chips have found a viable market, allowing Chinese tech firms to continue training models, albeit at lower efficiency than their Western counterparts.
"Nvidia beat expectations on quarterly revenue and earnings as investors watch closely for clues on how the company is weathering the emergence of a powerful new Chinese AI model," noted Axios in their earnings analysis.
Paradoxically, the rise of domestic Chinese AI competition has fueled global demand for Nvidia's hardware. Bloomberg reports that the emergence of efficient Chinese models, such as those from startup DeepSeek, has triggered a new sense of urgency among Western tech giants. This "arms race" dynamic means that even as direct sales to China face friction, the broader ecosystem is purchasing more compute power than ever to maintain supremacy.
CEO Jensen Huang addressed this dynamic during the earnings call, suggesting that new methods of perfecting AI models-exemplified by DeepSeek-will ultimately stoke more demand for computing. This counters the narrative that Chinese innovation would purely cannibalize Nvidia's market share. Instead, it appears to be expanding the total addressable market for high-performance compute.
The numbers reflect this continued dominance. NVIDIA Newsroom data indicates revenue for Q4 fiscal 2025 hit $39.3 billion, up 12% sequentially and 78% year-over-year. This growth is underpinned by the successful rollout of the Blackwell architecture. Despite initial supply chain concerns, Bloomberg reports that Blackwell's production issues are resolved, and the product is generating revenue ahead of schedule.
While Nvidia celebrates its current quarter, the geopolitical environment is fostering formidable long-term competitors. U.S. export bans have inadvertently accelerated China's domestic semiconductor industry.
According to a report from Fortune, Chinese chipmaker Cambricon-often dubbed "the Nvidia of China"-saw its revenue spike 14X in late 2025. As access to Nvidia's A100 and H100 chips remains blocked, Chinese hyperscalers are increasingly testing and deploying domestic alternatives. While these chips may currently lag in raw performance, the forced adoption curve is creating a viable ecosystem that could challenge Nvidia's monopoly in the Asian market over the next decade.
Looking ahead, Nvidia appears positioned to maintain its momentum through 2025 and 2026. Analysts at UBS expect revenue from the Blackwell architecture alone to double to over $20 billion in Q1 2025. With gross margins stabilizing and the "compliant chip" strategy smoothing out volatility in China, the company has effectively decoupled its financial health from the worst-case geopolitical scenarios.
For investors and policymakers alike, the message is clear: Regulation alters the flow of technology, but it hasn't stopped the flood. Nvidia has proven that with enough engineering ingenuity, it can sustain growth even when the geopolitical walls close in.
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