NVIDIA and Apple Clash in Compute Stack Showdown
NVIDIA and Apple recently reported their quarterly earnings, shedding light on the competition to control the compute stack. NVIDIA's Q1 FY2027 results showed a revenue of $81.61B, up 85.2% year over year, with Data Center at $75.25B (+92%) and Networking nearly tripling to $14.8B. Jensen Huang framed the moment bluntly: “Demand has gone parabolic… In the AI era, compute capacity is revenue and profits.”
On the other hand, Apple posted Q3 FY2026 with a revenue of $109.4 billion, up 16%, with iPhone at $54.3 billion (+22%), Mac up 29%, and Services at $30.7 billion. Tim Cook called it “our strongest June quarter ever” and positioned the Mac as “the ultimate AI powerhouse” for on-device inference.
The contrast between NVIDIA building AI factories and Apple owning AI endpoints is evident in their numbers, with a gross margin of 75% for NVIDIA compared to around 47% for Apple. Forward P/E ratios stand at 25x for NVIDIA and 32x for Apple. Key vulnerabilities include China export limits and $145B supply commitments for NVIDIA, while Apple faces DRAM pricing and tariff exposure.