NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) reports fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 results on February 25, 2026 after market close. After twelve consecutive quarters of beats and shares up 35% over the past year, there’s a lot riding on this quarter. However, my bet is this could be the first quarter that makes clear just how big the Blackwell supercycle is.
Momentum Headed into February 25th
Last quarter delivered the goods. NVIDIA posted $57.01 billion in revenue, beating estimates by more than $2 billion, with earnings per share of $1.30 topping the $1.26 consensus. Data Center revenue hit $51.2 billion, up 66% year-over-year, with networking revenue more than doubling to $8.2 billion. Gross margins came in at 73.6% non-GAAP, ahead of guidance.
But the setup wasn’t perfect. Inventory jumped 32% sequentially to $19.8 billion, and China sales essentially disappeared due to export restrictions. Jensen Huang acknowledged H20 chip sales were only around $50 million in Q3 after “sizable purchase orders did not materialize.” Management assumed zero data center compute revenue from China in Q4 guidance, which carries forward into this report.
Since then, shares have traded mostly sideways. The stock closed at $187.98 on February 18, up less than 1% year-to-date. Prediction markets show 70.5% probability of closing above $180 by month-end but only 24% odds of reaching $200. That’s not exactly euphoric despite a series of headlines that have been fantastic for NVIDIA like a major partnership with Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) and every major hyperscaler issuing capex guides that are sizably ahead of Wall Street expectations.
The Numbers to Watch
Here’s what NVIDIA guided to this quarter:
| Metric | Q4 FY2026 Estimate | YoY Growth | FY2026 Full Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $65.0B (±2%) | ~68% | ~$213B |
| Non-GAAP EPS | $1.53 (Consensus) | ~77% | ~$4.68 |
| Gross Margin (Non-GAAP) | 75.0% (±0.5%) | +140 bps | ~74% |
The $65 billion revenue guide implies 14% sequential growth from Q3’s $57 billion. That’s a meaningful step-up, especially with China revenue still zeroed out in guidance. Management guided gross margins to 74.8% GAAP and 75% non-GAAP, which would mark continued improvement despite rising input costs.
Polymarket traders are pricing in 94.5% probability NVIDIA beats the $1.52 EPS consensus, with $24,126 in active liquidity on that market. That’s high confidence, but not certainty.
Blackwell Execution Is Everything
The key focus will be whether Blackwell revenue justifies the hype.
On the Q3 call, Jensen laid out $500 billion in combined Blackwell and Rubin visibility through the end of calendar 2026, with roughly $150 billion already shipped as of last quarter. That leaves $350 billion in the pipeline over the next year. Management said the GB 300 chip “crossed over” the GB 200 and now represents about two-thirds of total Blackwell revenue.
Jensen described demand as “off the charts” and said “the clouds are sold out” with installed GPU capacity fully utilized across Blackwell, Hopper, and Ampere generations. Keep in mind, these quotes were before Meta announced capital expenditures of $115 billion to $135 billion, Alphabet guided to $175 billion ot $185 billion, and Amazon guided to $200 billion. All those numbers were dramatically ahead of Wall Street’s expectations.
Gross margin expansion matters just as much. CFO Colette Kress said the company is working to hold margins “in the mid-seventies” for fiscal 2027 despite rising component costs. The path from 73.6% in Q3 to 75% in Q4 will show whether NVIDIA can maintain pricing power as Blackwell scales.
Guidance for fiscal 2027 will set the tone. NVIDIA will issue Q1 Fiscal 2027 guidance, and Wall Street expects the company to guide to $70.96 billion in revenue in Q1. This is where I think NVIDIA could deliver a substantial beat. Last quarter NVIDIA topped revenue expectations by $2 billion. With GB300 production in full swing and the potential for China sales in guidance, NVIDIA delivering guidance above $75 billion could ‘wow’ Wall Street.
Right now, Wall Street is modeling in $7.76 in adjusted earnings next year. That’s already healthy (about 65% from Fiscal 2026 estimates). However, with all of NVIDIA’s customers taking capital expenditure plans up dramatically, I believe this already bullish estimate is underestimating NVIDIA’s earnings potential.
Loop Capital Markets believes NVIDIA will earn $9.56 next year, and that’s about where I expect the company to land. If NVIDIA’s guidance blows away Wall Street expectations, expect shops across Wall Street to begin revising their full-year estimates up.
Catalysts That Could Drive Upside
Several factors could push results above expectations. First, China sales resuming would be pure upside. Management has assumed zero data center compute revenue from China since Q3, but “sizable purchase orders” were on the table before geopolitical issues intervened. Any relaxation of export restrictions or workaround products gaining traction would add billions in incremental revenue. Keep in mind, sales to China might matter more to guidance than what NVIDIA booked last quarter.
Second, the Blackwell supercycle is just beginning. Major partnerships announced since last quarter include OpenAI committing to 10 gigawatts of AI data center capacity and Anthropic ramping to 1 gigawatt with Grace Blackwell systems. Jensen said Blackwell delivers roughly $30 billion in revenue per gigawatt compared to $20-25 billion for Ampere.
Third, inference workloads are scaling exponentially. Jensen described inference as “the hardest of all” AI workloads and noted that reasoning capabilities mean “the amount of computation necessary has gone completely exponential.” If enterprises shift more budget toward inference infrastructure, NVIDIA’s Grace Blackwell architecture has a 10-15x performance advantage over H200 on long-context workloads.
Finally, agentic AI adoption is accelerating. Companies like Cursor, Anthropic, and OpenAI are pioneering applications that reason, plan, and use tools autonomously. Jensen called this wave “revolutionary” and said it’s giving rise to entirely new categories of software. If agentic AI moves from experimentation to production deployment in 2026, that’s another leg of demand NVIDIA is uniquely positioned to capture.
Put it All Together, And This Could Be NVIDIA’s Biggest Earnings In A Long Time
NVIDIA is currently trading for 24X forward earnings. But that assumes $7.76 in EPS across the next year. If NVIDIA delivers strong earnings guidance on February 25th driven by a resumption of sales to China and rabid hyperscaler demand for GB300 systems, it will likely start a cycle of Wall Street firms raising their full year targets, and NVIDIA re-rating.
This is an important earnings for NVIDIA, and my strong guess is it could set the tone for another very strong year in 2026.
Top Gaining Stocks
Top Losing Stocks