April 25 - Nvidia (NVDA, Financial) edged higher on Friday morning, gaining nearly 1.5%, after Morgan Stanley (MS, Financial) raised its fiscal 2027 projections, citing surging global demand for artificial intelligence inference workloads, particularly in large language models.
The bank lifted its revenue estimate for fiscal 2027 to $255.5 billion, up from $230.9 billion, and raised its adjusted earnings forecast to $6.01 per share from $5.37. Analyst Joseph Moore attributed the upward revision to sustained momentum in Nvidia's data center segment and a “sharp acceleration” in inference usage.
Moore noted that while macroeconomic and supply chain concerns persist, demand for inference chips is growing rapidly, especially amid a shortage affecting major AI models worldwide. He pointed to trends observed through OpenRouter and proprietary checks that suggest infrastructure stress due to a fivefold spike in AI token generation since the year began.
High-profile voices in tech, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Alphabet (GOOG, Financial) CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla chief Elon Musk, have also highlighted the spike in AI workload usage in recent days.
The analyst emphasized that the uptick is being driven by revenue-generating applications, not speculative training activity, providing a bullish signal for Nvidia's business fundamentals.
