Thursday, August 15th.
Nvidia The day Financial Report is released in the second quarter.
At 4:02 pm Eastern Time, Financial Report's press release from Nvidia appeared on Bloomberg Terminal on time.
Chen Xi clicked on the attachment immediately, skipping the revenue and profit data that he had read countless times, and landed directly on the Data Center business line--
Revenue was 655 million US Dollar, slightly higher than market expectations of 640 million US Dollar, with a month-on-month increase of more than 3%.
For a company that has experienced the bursting of the cryptocurrency bubble, overstocking of channel inventory, and continued decline in gaming revenue over the past three quarters,
This number itself is not particularly alarming, but its direction - month-on-month growth - is the most critical signal in the entire Financial Report.
Zhao Chen is sitting on Suite's sofa, with the Financial Report abstract just printed out on the coffee table in front of him.
Su Wantang is handling the affairs of Henglong Charity Foundation in the country today, not New York.
Shen Zhiyi's internship has ended and she returned to Magic City to continue her work in the law firm.
There were only two people in the room, Chen Xi and him, and the data flow on Bloomberg Terminal was particularly clear in the silence.
"Data Center increased month-on-month and did not continue to shrink."
Chen Xi raised his head,
"Huang Renxun said on Taipei Computex last month that the demand for AI training is accelerating.
At the time, the market regarded this statement as a routine optimistic statement.
But today's data at least proves that he is not bragging."
Zhao Chen did not answer, tapping his fingers lightly on the armrest of the sofa.
He is waiting for the Financial Report phone call.
Financial Report itself is just a summary of the past quarter. What can really reveal the future direction of Nvidia is every word Huang Renxun said on the conference call.
At five o'clock in the afternoon Eastern Time, the Nvidia Financial Report call will start on time.
Huang Renxun's voice came out from the telephone conference system, with his unique unhurried rhythm--
It's not the carefully polished IR rhetoric that Wall Street analysts are used to.
Instead, an engineer is stating a technical roadmap that he has deduced countless times.
He began with a brief review of second quarter results --
The game business is still digesting channel inventory but has improved significantly month-on-month.
Data Center business achieved restorative growth driven by hyperscale computing customers.
The automotive business is still at the bottom due to the weak global auto market.
Then he started talking about the future.
"We are seeing strong order signals in both the cloud inference and training markets."
Huang Renxun's voice slightly increased by half a degree, not to increase the volume, but to increase the level of confidence.
"Hyperscale Data Center customers are accelerating the deployment of NVIDIA GPU-based AI inference infrastructure.
At the same time, the demand for computing power for emerging workloads such as Natural Language Processing, Recommendation System, and Generative AI is growing at an exponential rate.
We believe that the demand for AI training and inference will continue to drive the growth of Data Center's business in the next few quarters and even years.
This is not a cyclical rebound, this is the beginning of a structural trend."
Zhao Chen's fingers stopped on the armrest of the sofa. Structural trend.
These four words spoken from Huang Renxun's mouth carry more weight than any financial figures.
He's not describing a quarterly rebound, he's telling the world--
AI's computing power demand is not a short-term fluctuation, but a long-term cycle that has just begun.
Chen Xi quickly made shorthand on his notebook and circled a few key words mentioned by Huang Renxun--
Natural Language Processing, Recommendation System, Generative AI.
At that time, these three words only sounded like concepts in cutting-edge laboratories.
But she has been with Zhao Chen for so long, and has learned to catch signals from Huang Renxun's words that others would ignore.
She raised her head and saw Zhao Chen's hand lifted from the armrest of the sofa and picked up the teacup, moving very slowly.
It was as if he was weighing the weight of what he just said in his hands.
After the phone call ended, Zhao Chen did not ask Chen Xi to evaluate the position immediately.
He leaned on the back of the sofa and looked at the after-hours stock price of Nvidia on Bloomberg Terminal--
It slowly climbed from about 152 US Dollar before the conference call to about 155 US Dollar.
The modest increase shows that the market has not fully digested the deeper meaning of what Huang Renxun just said.
"Huang Renxun said 'the beginning of a structural trend'."
Zhao Chen Put the teacup down,
"The game business is Nvidia's past, and Data Center is Nvidia's future.
He tells us now that the future has already begun.
The outbreak of AI Computing Power is not a linear process, but an exponential process.
Once the hyperscale Data Center customer upgrades GPU procurement for AI training and inference from experimental deployment to standardized configuration,
The growth rate of Nvidia's Data Center business will far exceed everyone's expectations."
Chen Xi compiled the shorthand of Huang Renxun's phone call into a brief memorandum with only one line of title -
"Nvidia Q2 Financial Report Core message from the conference call: the beginning of a structural trend".
In the memo, she listed several key judgments mentioned by Huang Renxun,
Including the changes in purchasing trends of ultra-large-scale Data Center customers, the growth forecast of the AI inference market, and the outlook for the computing power demand of Natural Language Processing and Generative AI.
After writing the last word, she looked at the time - eight o'clock in the evening.
She added an asterisk next to the date, as was her custom as a researcher,
Used to mark moments that may, in retrospect, prove to be turning points.
"Zhao Zong, Nvidia's positions, do we need to adjust the strategy?"
Zhao Chen picked up the tea cup and took a sip. The tea was already cold. He drank the cool tea and put down the cup.
"No need to adjust. Continue to lock up.
Unless Huang Renxun leaves Nvidia, or AI proves to be a bubble, one share of these stocks will not be sold."
Chen Xi wrote down this sentence, transcribed it exactly as it was at the end of the memo, and marked it as "Zhao Chen's original words".
She closed her laptop and leaned on the armrest of the sofa,
Suddenly I remembered that at the Green Energy Technology negotiation table, at Henglong Board of Directors, and in the life-and-death showdown with Short Sellers in May,
Similar scenes have been played out repeatedly - everyone thought that Zhao Chen would move forward with great fanfare in the next step, but he chose to stop at a certain critical point.
This is true for Bidiya, this is true for Bubble Mary, and the same is true for today's Tesla and Nvidia.
He's not the kind of investor who needs to put his name on every new stock price high.
What he is more concerned about is whether the position can withstand the test of the next storm, and what will happen after the storm.
Is Era Vanguard's name still firmly engraved on that company's Shareholder Register?
She looked away from the window and landed on the Financial Report summary on the coffee table with the words "structural trends" circled in red pen by Zhao Chen.
Suddenly I had a vague premonition in my heart - in a few years, this memo might be dug out of the file.
It is cited repeatedly as a footnote to a long-term turning point.
At this moment, it is just an internal file lying quietly on the computer hard drive.
The night wind Hudson River outside the window is slowly pushing the clouds out of the Manhattan skyline,
Several stars were revealed that were far farther and more stable than the lights of the Wall Street skyscraper.