Nvidia (NVDA +2.33%) has taken the tech world by storm over the last year and a half. While OpenAI's ChatGPT sparked the generative artificial intelligence (AI) boom, it's Nvidia that's captured most of the spoils thus far.
Shares of the graphics processing unit (GPU) superstar have jumped 500% since the start of 2023 as revenue and profits have skyrocketed. Nvidia's products comprise the backbone of AI infrastructure, and demand for them has been so strong that there have been shortages of GPUs.
On its recent earnings call, Tesla noted that it had installed 35,000 of Nvidia's H100 GPUs in supercomputers. It was the latest sign that Nvidia's hardware is shorthand for AI prowess, as the more of its components a company has, the more AI training and AI inference it can do.
Given Nvidia's value in the AI race, it's only natural to wonder who Nvidia's biggest customer is.
Image source: Getty Images.
Nvidia's top customers
Nvidia doesn't disclose who its biggest customer is. That's not surprising since that information would be valuable to competitors. However, in its recent 10-K filing, the company did say that one customer represented 13% of its revenue from its compute and networking segment, and an indirect customer that purchases Nvidia products through integrators and distributors, including the customer above, represents 19% of the company's revenue. This name is also from the compute and networking segment.
It's not completely clear who that customer is, but we have a good sense of who Nvidia's biggest customers may be based on media reports and deduction.
NASDAQ: NVDA
Key Data Points
Unsurprisingly, big tech companies like Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, and Alphabet are believed to be among Nvidia's biggest customers, making up roughly 40% of its revenue.
It's also clear that AI start-ups, like OpenAI, and autonomous vehicle companies, like Tesla, are significant customers of Nvidia. At this point, any company investing in AI is almost certainly an Nvidia customer.
Nvidia's customer concentration does add some risk, especially if those big tech companies pulled back on spending, but the greater threat may be incoming competition from AMD and Intel. If Nvidia can defend itself from that, the stock should continue to be a winner.
