The numbers are staggering by any measure. Nvidia is poised to report quarterly revenue of $78.8 billion when it delivers its first-quarter results on May 20 — a near-79% surge from a year earlier. But the market has already priced in that explosive growth, and then some. The stock touched a fresh all-time high of €183.82 on Friday, climbing roughly 18% over the past month.
Yet the real story brewing beneath the surface has less to do with silicon and everything to do with glass.
A $500 Million Bet on Optical Fiber
While the chipmaker’s core business continues to mint money, management has been quietly laying the groundwork for the next bottleneck in AI infrastructure: data transfer speeds. Copper cables inside AI server racks are becoming a liability as computing power scales exponentially, and Nvidia has placed a $500 million bet on a fix.
The company struck a multi-year partnership with Corning, the specialty glass and fiber optics giant, to dramatically expand US production of optical connectivity solutions. Corning will increase its domestic manufacturing capacity tenfold and boost fiber-optic output by more than 50%. Three new plants in North Carolina and Texas are in the works, creating over 3,000 jobs. Nvidia secured its stake through subscription rights worth half a billion dollars.
CEO Jensen Huang had flagged this so-called co-packaged optics technology as indispensable for AI expansion during the GTC conference earlier this year. The logic is straightforward: as clusters of GPUs grow denser, copper cables struggle to move data between chips without overheating or creating latency. Fiber optics solve both problems, and Nvidia is moving to lock in supply before rivals can react.
The Vera Rubin Catalyst
The optical play is just one piece of a broader strategy. Nvidia’s next-generation platform, Vera Rubin, is set to hit the market in the second half of this year, and the company claims it will slash the cost of AI computations by a factor of ten. Customers will need far fewer graphics processors to train large models, which could reshape the economics of AI development.
Demand is already stacking up. Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services have lined up to deploy Rubin systems first, while AI developers including OpenAI and Anthropic are planning the transition. Huang has publicly stated that Nvidia sees a cumulative order pipeline worth at least $1 trillion through 2027.
The $87 Billion Question
For the quarter just ended, Nvidia’s own guidance pointed to around $78 billion in revenue. But Wall Street is already looking ahead. Analysts expect the second quarter to accelerate to nearly $87 billion — a figure that would represent sequential growth of roughly 11% and push the annual run rate well past $340 billion.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying Nvidia?
The optimism is fueled by a spending spree from Big Tech. Microsoft has outlined capital expenditure plans of $190 billion for 2026 alone, while Amazon has raised its investment budget to $200 billion, with the lion’s share directed at data centers. Meta has similarly boosted its AI infrastructure allocations. Nvidia sits at the center of all three spending programs.
The consensus earnings estimate stands at $1.77 per share for the first quarter. For the full fiscal year 2027, analysts project $8.34 per share, which puts the stock at a price-to-earnings multiple of roughly 24 — historically cheap by Nvidia’s own standards and well below its long-term average.
A History of Post-Earnings Pullbacks
There is, however, a pattern that gives even the most bullish investors pause. After seven of the last ten quarterly reports, Nvidia shares declined. Beating expectations has become table stakes; the market now demands a blowout.
The bar for May 20 is exceptionally high. Revenue growth of 79% is already baked into the stock price. To trigger a sustained rally, Nvidia likely needs to surpass the 80% growth threshold. Anything less could invite the same post-earnings selling pressure that has characterized recent quarters.
The China Void
One persistent overhang is the company’s exclusion from the Chinese data center market. Nvidia has completely excluded revenues from that segment in its current guidance. Historically, China represented a roughly $50 billion addressable market for the company. A return to that business is not on the horizon given ongoing export restrictions, and the gap leaves a structural hole in Nvidia’s growth story that no amount of US or European demand can fully fill.
Analyst Conviction Remains High
Despite the risks, the analyst community remains overwhelmingly constructive. Rosenblatt holds the highest price target at $325, while Bernstein and Cantor Fitzgerald both see the stock reaching $300. Goldman Sachs maintains a Buy rating with a $250 target. The average target implies meaningful upside from current levels around €180.
The coming weeks will test whether Nvidia can deliver the kind of numbers that justify those targets — and whether its strategic bets on fiber optics and next-generation architecture can sustain the narrative that has made it the undisputed bellwether of the AI era.
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