Despite rising competition, Nvidia holds 80% of the fast-growing market for artificial intelligence chips as the tech industry’s graphics processing unit, or GPU, of choice for making and deploying generative AI software.

What investors will want to see when Nvidia reports its third-quarter earnings on Wednesday is whether it can continue to grow at a fierce rate, even as the boom in AI enters its third year.

Nvidia is entering “uncharted territory” as it attempts to continue growing on a $3.5 trillion market cap, wrote HSBC analyst Frank Lee in a report this week.

“We have pondered this amazing growth trajectory and not only do we see no signs of a slowdown, we expect further upside in 2026 data center momentum,” Lee said in his note. He has a buy rating on the stock.

Future growth will have to come from Blackwell, its next-generation chip that has just started shipping to end-users such as Microsoft, Google and OpenAI. More important than Nvidia’s third-quarter results will be what the company says about demand for the Blackwell chip.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will likely update investors about how that is shaping up on Wednesday, and he will potentially address reports that some of the systems based on Blackwell chips are experiencing overheating issues.

In August, Nvidia said it expected about “several billion” in Blackwell sales during the January quarter.

“Our base case is for NVDA to ship ~100K Blackwell GPUs in 4Q, which we believe is near the low-end of investor expectations,” Raymond James analyst Srini Pajjuri wrote in a note last week. He has a strong buy rating on the stock.

Since Nvidia’s last earnings report, the stock is up nearly 19%, capping off a stunning run that has seen the share price rise eightfold since ChatGPT was released in late 2022. Alongside the stock’s rise has been a fierce increase in sales and margin, and its forward price to earnings ratio has expanded to just under 50, according to FactSet.

Growth is slowing, but that is partially because Nvidia’s top line is so much larger than before. Nvidia reported 122% growth in sales in the most-recent quarter. That was lower than the 262% year-over-year growth it reported in the April quarter and the 265% growth in the January quarter.

Analysts polled by LSEG are expecting around $33.12 billion in revenue, which would be nearly 83% growth compared to a year ago. The company is also expected to post 75 cents in earnings per share, according to LSEG consensus estimates.

Nvidia’s data center business accounted for nearly 88% of sales in the most-recent quarter, taking the focus off the company’s legacy computer games business.

The company makes the chip for the Nintendo Switch, for example, which the Japanese video game company says is seeing major sales declines as the game console ages. Nvidia’s gaming business is expected to grow about 6% to $3.03 billion, according to a FactSet estimate. Its automotive business, making chips for electric cars, is still small, even though analysts expect it to grow 38% to about $360 million in sales.

But none of that will matter as long as Nvidia’s data center business continues to grow at a rate that is nearly doubling on an annual basis and Huang signals to investors that the party won’t end.

VinFast delivered its first VF9 vehicles to customers in Los Angeles yesterday, kicking off US deliveries of the new 3-row electric SUV.

VinFast is a relatively new EV brand, founded in Vietnam in 2017, under the umbrella of massive Vietnamese conglomerate Vingroup. It started delivering cars to the US in 2023 with its VF8 mid-size SUV.

The VF9 is its three-row large SUV, which has been delivering in Vietnam since the 2023 model year, and also in some other Southeast Asian and a few European markets. But now it’s ready to start delivering the VF9 here in the US, and it started last night in Los Angeles.

VinFast held a small event at its US headquarters in Los Angeles to deliver the first 8 VF9s to the US market, and invited us out to the event and to have a quick look at the car.

VinFast told us that it currently has 36 dealerships in 15 states, with 13 company owned stores in California. So deliveries won’t just start right away in California, but other territories as well. However, VinFast couldn’t provide us an estimate of what the delay before delivery would be if ordering a vehicle today.

VinFast trim levels

The VF9 comes in two trim levels, Eco and Plus. The Eco model starts at $69,800 with the Plus version $4k more at $73,800. First deliveries will start with the Plus model, with the Eco coming a few months later.

But despite those somewhat high starting prices, VinFast is also offering a limited-time promotion for the first 100 vehicle deliveries to lease the Plus for $529/mo with $2,000 down. And since the VF8 has seen some really great lease deals, we could imagine the VF9 might get the same treatment after deliveries start happening in earnest.

The trim levels don’t differ significantly in drive capabilities, with the same battery and motor between the two. See the full spec sheet here.

The main differences are in a bunch of additional interior comforts on the Plus, like ventilated massaging seats, 2nd row seat heaters, seat and steering wheel position memory, rear LCD display, panoramic roof and a subwoofer. The Plus also has fog lights and cornering lights.

However, the Plus also has lower range at 291 miles instead of 330 miles, primarily due to larger 21in wheels compared to the base 20in wheels. Wheels can make a huge difference in aerodynamic efficiency, especially with different wheel cover designs.

The Plus is also about 100lbs heavier than the Eco, and can come in a 6-seat “captain’s chair” configuration, whereas the Eco only comes in a 7-seat layout.

Extremely quick first drive

We got a chance to drive the VF9 very briefly, but given that it was in the middle of LA rush hour traffic and only a few miles, this barely even qualifies for “first drive” status.

However, the vehicle felt quite spacious inside – as one would expect from a large SUV. We only sat in the seats for a few minutes, but the seat material was passably comfortable (not like the outstandingly comfortable EX90). The third row has a huge amount of headroom, but little legroom – you’re basically sitting on the floor back there, and it takes some work to get out of it, too.

The drive software does seem to have matured compared to the previous VF8 version I drove. That VF8 had horrendous throttle lag, especially when starting from 0mph, but I didn’t experience that quite so much here in the VF9. It felt better. They’re making progress.

The throttle pedal is a little weirdly jumpy though in sport mode, so despite that I set almost all EVs to sport mode and just leave it there, this might be a car that I’d drive in standard or eco more often. And hope that Vinfast continues to tweak the drive software to make it feel a little more refined. But that said, again, I’d like a chance to test this more and get a feel for it.

Power was good though not amazing, it’s a large car after all so comfort is going to be more of a premium than speed.

I like VinFast’s user interface well enough – it’s pretty well laid out, it doesn’t suffer from the lag that some other UIs do, and you can always escape to CarPlay or Android Auto if that’s your preference. Though the gathered media did experience some random faults on the 3 early-production press cars we had access to for the night, like a faulty anti-window-pinch sensor and rear hatch closure sensor.

All in all, after the relatively poor overall reviews for the VF8 and a middling experience myself when I drove one, I came away pleasantly surprised by the VF9, with a vehicle that was nicer than I expected on this very short drive. I’m still not a large SUV guy and would love to see some of VinFast’s smaller vehicles here (the VF7 is coming to the US, but I’d like to see the even-smaller ones), but as long as the arrow keeps going in the right direction and VinFast keeps improving, there could be a nice future here for Vietnam.

And that’s the thing… I really want VinFast to succeed. I like the idea of having another country join the international stage of auto manufacturing, and it would be great for Vietnam to gain some chops in the realm of complex manufacturing. The country already does well in textiles and electronics… but cars are a whole different thing. This drive was too short to draw many conclusions, but VinFast does seem to be improving from the short experience we had.

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SpaceX is slated to launch its gargantuan Starship rocket on Tuesday out of South Texas, a key test that is expected to include a guest visit from President-elect Donald Trump.

The sixth major test mission comes as SpaceX Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is heavily engaged in transition planning for Trump’s second administration. Musk, who has been a near-constant fixture of Trump’s inner circle since the November 5 election, has maintained that over regulation, especially surrounding Starship, factored into his decision to support the Republican.

SpaceX will try to launch Starship from its site in South Texas during a 30-minute time slot beginning at 4 p.m. local time, sending the vehicle to space and partially around the world.

One of the most anticipated moments on Tuesday will come about seven minutes into the mission when the company will attempt to catch the Super Heavy booster in midair with giant mechanical arms — referred to as “chopsticks” — repeating the groundbreaking feat from its previous flight.

The largest and most powerful rocket ever developed, Starship is under contract to function as a lunar lander that NASA will use to put people back on the moon for the first time in half a century. It’s the centerpiece of Musk’s ambition to start a settlement on Mars. 

The vehicle is also meant to revolutionise SpaceX’s business plan. Designed to be fully reusable, SpaceX claims Starship will be much cheaper to fly than any other rocket on the market and will eventually replace its industry-leading Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets for sending cargo into orbit. 

But to meet that promise of delivering a fully reusable rocket, SpaceX must refine its technique for recovering all of the pieces of Starship after launch. 

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The launch will be the latest event Musk and Trump have attended together, following a Saturday night Ultimate Fighting Championship match in Madison Square Garden. Trump has frequently showered Musk with praise at his rallies, oftentimes describing in great detail his awe watching SpaceX rockets. 

On this flight, the company will attempt once again to “catch” the rocket’s massive booster, called Super Heavy, which is used to propel the Starship spacecraft toward space throughout the first few minutes of takeoff. Like last time, the booster will return back its launchpad and slow itself down as it comes in for landing. A pair of giant mechanical arms will then catch the booster and stop its fall.

Starship will attempt a fiery return plunge through the atmosphere, testing out an updated heat shield to protect it during the fall. It will then try to return to an upright position before splashing down into the Indian Ocean.

While most of Starship appeared to survive this process in October, parts of the vehicle appeared to burn off. However, the company was still able to splash down Starship relatively intact and upright in the ocean.

SpaceX should have a better view of this fall during Tuesday’s launch attempt. The company aims to launch in the Texas afternoon, which means Starship will be landing in the Indian Ocean during the daytime. That should provide more sunlight to show how the vehicle survives its descent.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said on Friday that as many as 400 Starship flights were possible over the next four years. That frequency can only happen if SpaceX perfects its landing strategy, so the company can quickly turn around the rockets for their next flights. Shotwell described the process as similar to the way airlines drive down the cost of owning and operating commercial jetliners.

During the October test, the booster came very close to crashing near the tower, Musk said in a video on his X platform. SpaceX will need to address that issue as well as a laundry list of other things, such as refueling the vehicle in space, before Starship lives up to the full scope of Musk’s plans.

© 2024 Bloomberg L.P.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)