Chipmaker Nvidia has reported a record annual revenue of $215.9 billion (£159.1 billion), surpassing analysts’ expectations despite ongoing investor skepticism about the massive spending in artificial intelligence (AI) technology.

For the final quarter of its financial year, Nvidia’s sales surged 73% compared to the same period last year, underscoring the rapid growth in demand for AI-focused computing.

“Computing demand is growing exponentially,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. “Our customers are racing to invest in AI compute — the factories powering the AI industrial revolution and their future growth.”

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable publicly traded company with a market valuation around $4.8 trillion, supplies advanced chips to major AI developers, including OpenAI and Meta. The firm has also announced plans to generate further AI demand through its own new technologies.

Industry experts expect the expansion of AI infrastructure to continue. Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, noted that “AI is accelerating faster than people not using these tools can grasp.”

Despite these gains, investors have expressed caution over Nvidia’s extensive network of deals, raising concerns about potential “circular financing” arrangements that may obscure the true strength of AI demand.

Geopolitics has also complicated Nvidia’s outlook. The company recently received approval from the U.S. government to sell its H200 AI chips to Chinese customers under specific conditions. However, U.S. officials confirmed that no such sales have yet occurred, and Nvidia did not include projections for China in its latest guidance.

In addition to supplying chips, Nvidia is actively expanding its own AI-enabled products. At the recent CES technology trade show in Las Vegas, Huang unveiled “Alpamayo,” an open-source AI platform designed to bring advanced reasoning to autonomous vehicles. The company also announced plans to launch a robotaxi service next year in partnership with an undisclosed collaborator.

Nvidia has dominated AI model training but faces increasing competition in inference, the process of applying trained AI models to real-world data. To strengthen this capability, the company acquired rival Groq in a $20 billion deal during the fourth quarter, bolstering its expertise in AI inference technologies.

With record revenues, strategic acquisitions, and new product lines, Nvidia continues to solidify its central role in the AI revolution while navigating investor scrutiny and geopolitical challenges.