Investing.com -- Shares in Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) edged higher in premarket trading on Wednesday, as investors eagerly awaited the release of the chipmaker's latest quarterly results.
California-based Nvidia, which manufactures the graphics processors that power generative artificial intelligence, has become a focal point in a surge in excitement over the nascent technology.
Nvidia's share price has tripled this year, thanks in large part to a stellar forecast in May that propelled the stock's market value to above $1 trillion, on par with tech industry behemoths like Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL).
The announcement initiated a fresh wave of hype around AI's potentially game-changing applications, a euphoria that in turn pushed up other Big Tech players and drove a broader stock market rally. The so-called Magnificent Seven group of megacap companies, which include Nvidia, have helped spur on a more than 14% jump in the benchmark S&P 500 this year.
Analysts have said that Nvidia's numbers and the outlook for the rest of the year could thus influence the near-term course of not only the AI boom but broader market sentiment.
According to Bloomberg consensus estimates, Nvidia is projected to have posted revenue of $11.04 billion in its second quarter. Nearly three-fourths of the top-line figure is expected to consist of revenue from Nvidia's crucial data center business, which houses its all-important H100 chip used in AI-fueled platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT.
In a recent note to clients, analysts at Piper Sandler said they believe the conversation around Nvidia will "boil down to the data center" unit. They added that they are confident the division will see "continued growth," so much so they anticipate that data center revenues will reach $50B by Nvidia's 2025 fiscal year.