Chip giant Nvidia has reported another huge jump in sales as the global push to build artificial intelligence (AI) systems continues at a rapid pace.

The company said on Wednesday that it brought in $96bn (£71bn) of revenue during the second quarter, more than double the amount for the same period a year earlier. And it expects revenue of $108bn in the next quarter.

"AI has reached its inflexion point," CEO Jensen Huang said in prepared remarks, describing the infrastructure buildout as going "at full steam."

The revenue figures beat Wall Street's expectations, leading Nvidia shares to rise by 4.7% in after-hours trading.

The company's data centre division alone generated $89bn in the period, up by 117% from a year earlier, underscoring just how much of the industry now depends on Nvidia's hardware.

Essentially every notable tech company building AI tools and infrastructure, including Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft, uses Nvidia chips to do so.

Financial analysts said the strong results highlight Nvidia's ongoing momentum.

Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, called it "another monster set of results," noting that revenue and earnings both topped forecasts.

He said the guidance for next quarter "points to revenue comfortably above $110bn."

Nvidia's growing financial strength has also reshaped its role in the sector.

It has become a backer to those that rely on its chips, providing some funding to the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX to help continue the costly buildout of AI infrastructure.

Its financial success and processors are now central the AI boom, powering the data centres used to train and run AI models.

Demand for that computing muscle has helped transform Nvidia into the world's most valuable firm, with a market capitalisation of more than $5tn.

Competition is emerging - from customers designing their own processors and from cheaper suppliers in China – but the latest numbers suggest those challenges remain limited for now.

With around 40% of the US stock market concentrated in ten companies heavily invested in AI, Nvidia's fortunes matter far beyond Silicon Valley.