In the global technology landscape, Nvidia has become an undeniable force with its outstanding GPU technology and powerful AI computing capabilities.
In the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, Nvidia achieved a revenue of $26 billion, an increase of 18% month on month and 262% year-on-year; Net profit was 14.88 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 628%. Among them, the revenue of the data center business reached 22.6 billion US dollars, an increase of 427% compared to the same period last year and a month on month increase of 23%.
The unexpected performance also made Nvidia's stock price stand out. On May 23rd local time, Nvidia's stock price broke through $1000 per share for the first time. As of the closing of the US stock market on May 24th, it was at $1064.69 per share, with a total market value exceeding $2.6 trillion. Since the beginning of this year, Nvidia has risen by over 100%. If we extend the time, Nvidia's stock price has risen more than 25 times in the past five years.
In addition to its impressive main business performance, Nvidia has also made frequent moves in the primary market, continuously expanding its business footprint through investments and acquisitions. According to S&P Global data, Nvidia has become the fourth largest venture capital company in 2023, second only to Microsoft, SoftBank, and Google, with investments in healthcare and biotechnology AI infrastructure, generative AI and RPA technology, autonomous driving, robotics, 3D printing and other fields.
Healthcare and Biotechnology
In the fields of healthcare and biotechnology, Nvidia has made significant investments in several companies with leading technologies in AI pharmaceuticals, gene editing, precision medicine, and more. These investments not only help Nvidia expand into new business areas, but also form new business models.
Nvidia CEO Huang Renxun has repeatedly promoted the future of "digital biology", and Nvidia has successfully created a business model that can continuously generate over $1 billion in cash flow revenue annually through its business in the field of biological manufacturing.
The BioNeMo platform launched by Nvidia is an AI drug development platform that provides a faster way to develop and deploy AI models, accelerating the AI assisted drug development process. This platform has been widely adopted in pharmaceutical companies, technology and biotechnology companies, and software companies.
According to the MedAlpha database, since 2023, Nvidia has invested in 9 biotech startups, totaling $2.15 billion. These companies are mainly focused on drug research and development. Mohammed (Sid) Siddeek, head of NVentures, a venture capital subsidiary of Nvidia, said that the lengthy and complex drug discovery process means there is a lot of room for computing power to come into play.
Specifically, on July 12, 2023, AI pharmaceutical listed company Recursion Pharmaceuticals announced a $50 million private equity investment from Nvidia, which will acquire approximately 4% of the company's shares. The Recursion program utilizes its vast proprietary biological and chemical datasets (over 23 gigabytes and 3 trillion searchable gene and compound relationships) to accelerate the training of basic models on Nvidia DGX Cloud, thereby assisting in the commercial licensing and release of Nvidia's generative AI drug discovery cloud service platform BioNeMo. Nvidia will also leverage its expertise in AI stack and full stack computing to assist Recursion in optimizing and expanding basic models.
Also in 2023, CHARM announced the completion of a $20 million strategic investment led by NVIDIA. CHARM was founded in 2021 with the aim of pioneering end-to-end 3D deep learning to discover and develop translational drugs targeting previously difficult drug targets. The co-founder of the company is Professor David Baker, Director of the Institute of Protein Design at the University of Washington.
In addition, Nvidia has invested in Relationship Therapeutics, a biotechnology company based in the UK. Relationship Therapeutics has developed a large language model using Nvidia's Cambridge-1 supercomputer to better understand genes by reading DNA. The company is currently focusing on the clinical direction of osteoporosis and plans to expand its product line to the fields of immunology and metabolic diseases. Relationship Therapeutics has also added Nvidia's generative AI based drug discovery platform BioNeMo.
In the field of AI infrastructure
Nvidia has invested in multiple startups in the field of AI and accelerated computing through its venture capital division NVentures, including companies focused on AI chips, algorithm optimization, cloud computing services, and more.
For example, Nvidia has invested in Databricks, a company focused on data analysis, and recently acquired open source big model company MosaicML at a high price to accelerate its AI layout. Nvidia and Databricks plan to collaborate on optimizing software to help customers build AI models running on Nvidia chip driven servers.
Intel is one of Nvidia's competitors in the field of AI. Although its venture capital business is relatively large, AI startups account for a relatively small proportion of its venture capital portfolio. In contrast, Nvidia's investments are more focused on AI and accelerated computing.
In the field of generative AI, Nvidia has invested in multiple companies with innovative technologies in text generation, image generation, audio generation, etc., promoting the development and application of generative AI technology. According to reports, Nvidia has participated in the Series F financing of Scale AI, with a valuation of $13.8 billion, Scale AI is a manufacturer that provides data services for AI applications. Its annotated and processed data are widely used in autonomous vehicle, generative AI and other fields.
The field of robotics
Nvidia CEO Huang Renxun has previously emphasized the importance of embodied intelligence on multiple occasions and predicted that humanoid robots will become the mainstream product in the future. In the field of robotics, Nvidia has also demonstrated its keen investment vision. It has invested in multiple companies with innovative capabilities in robotics technology, automated process design, intelligent manufacturing, etc., promoting the development and application of robotics process automation technology.
Last October, American startup Machina Labs announced the completion of a Series B financing of $32 million, with NVenture, a venture capital division under Nvidia, participating in the investment. Machina Labs was founded in 2019 by senior professionals in the aerospace and automotive industries, with a team from SpaceX Technology, materials, and manufacturing industry experts from companies such as Relativity Space. Machina Labs hopes to reconstruct the next generation of manufacturing industry through the robot craftsman platform, with its products mainly applied in the manufacturing industry. Previously, Nvidia only invested exclusively in the delivery robot startup, Serve Robotics, in March 2022, with an investment amount of $10 million.
In addition, Nvidia has also made efforts in areas such as autonomous driving and 3D printing. As Huang Renxun said in the financial report, AI is expanding to national sovereignty, consumer Internet companies, automobile manufacturers and healthcare customers, and these opportunities may "create multiple vertical markets worth billions of dollars" beyond cloud manufacturers. At the same time, he has emphasized on many occasions that the technology industry is developing rapidly, and investing in the distant future as soon as possible is a necessary path for NVIDIA.