Nvidia stock fluctuated on Thursday as investors digested the company’s latest earnings report, which signaled robust AI demand but provided little clarity on China.

Sales surged 56% in the quarter to $46.74 billion, which was roughly in line Wall Street’s projected $46.06 billion, according to LSEG. The company reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.05, just topping the $1.01 per share estimated by analysts.

The better-than-expected results were clouded by concerns over Nvidia’s future in China.

“There was more noise around this quarter and the guidance and what’s implied than I can remember ever on an Nvidia quarter, let alone on any other megacap tech company,” said Deepwater Management’s Gene Munster. “Of course, a lot of that noise is related to all the mechanics around China.”

In April, the Trump administration blocked Nvidia from selling its H20 chip in the market.

In August, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang struck a deal with President Donald Trump to restart sales to China by agreeing to give 15% of sales in the region to the government. That deal has not been finalized.

The market could be a $50 billion opportunity for Nvidia, growing 50% per year, Huang said in a call with analysts Wednesday, while adding that there’s a “real possibility” Nvidia can sell its advanced Blackwell processor there.

But the fate of its H20 chip, which was made specifically for China, remains up in the air.

Management said that Nvidia could ship between $2 billion and $5 billion in H20 revenue during the third quarter if the geopolitical environment permits.

Nvidia said it expects revenue this quarter to be $54 billion, plus or minus 2%, though that number doesn’t include any H20 shipments to China. Analysts were expecting revenue of $53.1 billion, according to LSEG.

Data center revenue of $41.1 billion in Q2 came up short of estimates for the second straight period, but still grew 56% over the year prior. The segment was up 5% over Q1, slowing from the prior quarter when data center revenue grew 10%.

For Nvidia bulls, there was still plenty of reason for optimism.

On a post-earnings conference call with investors, Huang said AI has made “tremendous progress” in the last year and that the build-out of AI infrastructure is still in its early stages.

“As the AI revolution went into full steam, as the AI race is now on, the capex spend has doubled to $600 billion per year,” he said. “There’s five years between now and the end of the decade, and $600 billion only represents the top four hyperscalers.”

Huang projected $3 trillion to $4 trillion in AI infrastructure spend by the end of the decade.

“The opportunity ahead is immense,” he added.

Benchmark analysts said in a Thursday note that Nvidia’s guidance was “only modest upside to an elevated Street consensus,” but overall the report showed “solid sequential and annual growth.”

“We believe Nvidia’s results are consistent with its previous objectives and are in no way indicative of a slowdown in industry-wide AI interest or investments,” the analysts, who have a buy rating on Nvidia’s stock, wrote in a note to clients.

The results showed that the “playbook remains the same” for Nvidia, JPMorgan analysts wrote.

“A solid beat and raise with multiple levers at play to drive upside, against the backdrop of a multi-year runway of growth for AI infrastructure spending, with NVDA in our view continuing to capture a significant majority of incremental spend (as it has over the past ~3 years),” the analysts said.

There is growing evidence that the widespread adoption of generative AI is impacting the job prospects of America’s workers, according to a paper released on Tuesday by three Stanford University researchers.

The study analyzed payroll records from millions of American workers, generated by ADP, the largest payroll software firm in the U.S.

The report found “early, large-scale evidence consistent with the hypothesis that the AI revolution is beginning to have a significant and disproportionate impact on entry-level workers in the American labor market.”

Most notably, the findings revealed that workers between the ages of 22 and 25 in jobs most exposed to AI — such as customer service, accounting and software development — have seen a 13% decline in employment since 2022.

By contrast, employment for more experienced workers in the same fields, and for workers of all ages in less-exposed occupations such as nursing aides, has stayed steady or grown. Jobs for young health aides, for example, rose faster than their older counterparts.

Front-line production and operations supervisors’ roles also showed an increase in employment for young workers, though this growth was smaller than that for workers over the age of 35.

The potential impact of AI on the job market has been a concern across industries and age groups, but the Stanford study appears to show that the results will be far from uniform. 

The study sought to rule out factors that could skew the data, including education level, remote work, outsourced jobs, and broader economic shifts, which could impact hiring decisions.

According to the Stanford study, their findings may explain why national employment growth for young workers has been stagnant, while overall employment has largely remained resilient since the global pandemic, despite recent signs of softening.

Young workers were said to be especially vulnerable because AI can replace “codified knowledge,” or “book-learning” that comes from formal education. On the other hand, AI may be less capable of replacing knowledge that comes from years of experience. 

The researchers also noted that not all uses of AI are associated with declines in employment. In occupations where AI complements work and is used to help with efficiency, there have been muted changes in employment rates.

The study — which hasn’t been peer-reviewed — appears to show mounting evidence that AI will replace jobs, a topic that has been hotly debated. 

Earlier this month, a Goldman Sachs economist said changes to the American labor market brought on by the arrival of generative AI were already showing up in employment data, particularly in the technology sector and among younger employees. 

He also noted that most companies were yet to deploy artificial intelligence for day-to-day use, meaning that the job market impact had yet to be fully realized.

Sales of Tesla cars in Europe plunged in July, in the company’s seventh consecutive month of declines, while Chinese rival BYD saw a monthly surge, data released on Thursday showed.

New car registrations of Tesla vehicles totaled 8,837 in July, down 40% year-on-year, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, or ACEA. BYD meanwhile recorded 13,503 new registrations in July, up 225% annually.

Tesla’s declines took place even as overall sales of battery electric cars rose in Europe, ACEA data showed.

Elon Musk‘s automaker faces a number of challenges in Europe including intense ongoing competition and reputational damage to the brand from the billionaire’s incendiary rhetoric and relationship with the Trump administration.

Tesla has struggled globally in recent times. The company’s auto sales revenue fell in the second quarter of the year and Musk warned that the automaker “could have a few rough quarters” ahead.

One of Tesla’s issues is that it has not had a major refresh of its car line-up. The company said this year that it is working on a more affordable electric car with “volume production” planned for the second half of 2025, with investors hoping this will reinvigorate sales.

Thomas Besson, head of automobile sector research at Kepler Cheuvreux, said Tesla management has been trying to “convince investors that Tesla is not really a car company” by talking about artificial intelligence, robotics and autonomy.

“They talk about almost everything else but the car they’re selling at a slower pace now because effectively, the age of their vehicle is much higher than the competition and the latest products have not been as successful as hoped, notably the Cybertruck,” Besson told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.

But the U.S. automaker is up against Chinese players, which are launching models aggressively and ramping up their push into Europe. BYD has led that charge, opening showrooms up across the continent and launching its cars at competitive prices over the last two years.

Chinese brands commanded a record market share rate of more than 5% in the first half of the year, which is a record high, according to data from JATO Dynamics released last month.

It’s not only Tesla feeling the heat from Chinese competition. Jeep owner Stellantis, South Korea’s Hyundai Group and Japan’s Toyota and Suzuki, all posted year-on-year declines in European new car registrations in July.

By contrast, Volkswagen, BMW and Renault Group, were among those that logged increases in new European car registrations across the month.