Goldman Sachs has issued an updated forecast for Nvidia Corporation ahead of the chip designer's highly anticipated February 25 earnings report, projecting fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of approximately $67.3 billion—roughly $2 billion above consensus estimates. The investment bank's bullish outlook reflects confidence in sustained artificial intelligence infrastructure spending and Nvidia's ability to maintain pricing power despite intensifying competition from Advanced Micro Devices and custom application-specific integrated circuits.
Analysts led by James Schneider project that Nvidia will exceed bottom-line expectations as well, with earnings per share estimates standing 5% above Street views for the fourth quarter and 9% above consensus for the first quarter of fiscal 2027. The bank's revenue forecast for the upcoming first quarter stands at $76.84 billion, representing an 8% premium to the $71.145 billion consensus estimate. These projections suggest Nvidia will continue delivering the beat-and-raise quarterly pattern that has characterized its performance throughout the AI boom.
Goldman Sachs maintains its buy rating on Nvidia with a $250 price target, which implies approximately 35% upside from the stock's recent close near $185 per share. The price target derives from a 30x price-to-earnings multiple applied to fiscal 2027 earnings estimates, a valuation the bank considers justified given Nvidia's technological leadership, expanding addressable market, and operating leverage as production scales. However, Goldman analysts caution that strong near-term results may already be reflected in current valuations, shifting investor focus to management's guidance for calendar years 2026 and 2027.
The bull case for Nvidia centers on several key catalysts that Goldman Sachs believes will drive sustained revenue growth. Hyperscaler capital expenditure—spending by large cloud computing providers including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and Meta—is forecast to exceed $527 billion in 2026, up from $394 billion in 2025. This projection may prove conservative given recent announcements, with Amazon alone committing $200 billion and Alphabet disclosing $185 billion in planned spending. Collectively, the four largest U.S. hyperscalers indicate a spending range of $650 to $700 billion for 2026, representing a 60% to 70% increase year-over-year.
Beyond hyperscaler demand, Goldman Sachs highlights accelerating GPU purchases from large language model companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic as an emerging growth driver. OpenAI is expected to begin scaling deployments in the second half of 2026, supported by partnerships with Nvidia, Broadcom, and AMD. While 2026 volumes are projected to be modest relative to OpenAI's approximately 26 gigawatt capacity objective over a four-to-five-year period, early evidence of execution and commentary from Nvidia on visibility into these deployments could serve as positive catalysts for the stock.
Sovereign government contracts represent another opportunity for Nvidia to diversify its revenue base. Several nations are establishing domestic AI infrastructure capabilities, creating demand for high-performance computing clusters independent of commercial hyperscaler buildouts. Goldman's analysis suggests this segment could contribute meaningfully to revenue growth in 2026 and beyond, though specific contract values and timing remain uncertain.
Data center revenue guidance will be a focal point of Nvidia's earnings call. The company has modeled $500 billion in data center revenue through 2026, but Goldman Sachs' estimates run "well above the Street" according to research notes. Any visibility into 2027 revenue potential, or directional commentary suggesting the company sees a path to sustaining growth beyond current projections, could drive share price appreciation even if fourth-quarter results merely meet elevated expectations.
The launch of Nvidia's next-generation Rubin GPU architecture in the second half of 2026 adds another dimension to the investment narrative. Rubin will reset performance benchmarks for the industry and typically triggers a new upgrade cycle as customers seek to maintain competitive advantages in AI model training and inference workloads. Historical patterns following architecture launches suggest demand significantly outstrips supply in initial quarters, supporting premium pricing and gross margin expansion.
Competitive dynamics will draw scrutiny from investors during the earnings call. Google's TPU v7 and AMD's MI455X accelerators are narrowing the performance gap with Nvidia on raw compute metrics, while Microsoft's recently announced Maia 200 offers a credible alternative for certain workloads. Additionally, custom ASIC development by Broadcom and Marvell for specific customers poses a longer-term threat to Nvidia's market share. However, Goldman analysts believe Nvidia's CUDA software ecosystem provides a significant moat that will preserve 80-85% market share in data center GPUs even as competition intensifies.
Risks to the bullish outlook include the possibility that AI infrastructure spending moderates as companies seek evidence of return on investment, supply chain constraints that limit Nvidia's ability to fulfill demand, or margin pressure from competitive pricing dynamics. Memory chip pricing volatility represents an additional risk, as DRAM and HBM3 shortages have driven input costs higher for GPU manufacturers. Any indication from management that these cost pressures are impacting gross margins could dampen investor enthusiasm.
Goldman Sachs' multi-year revenue and earnings projections for Nvidia illustrate the magnitude of growth expectations embedded in the stock's valuation. The bank forecasts calendar 2026 revenue of $215.1 billion with earnings per share of $4.49, accelerating to $382.9 billion in revenue and $8.75 in EPS for 2027, and reaching $513 billion in revenue with $12.13 in EPS by 2028. These projections assume continued AI adoption across industries, sustained hyperscaler infrastructure investment, and Nvidia's ability to maintain technological leadership through successive architecture generations.
Wall Street consensus for Nvidia remains overwhelmingly bullish, with 36 analysts rating the stock a buy, one hold rating, and one sell rating. The average price target across all analysts stands at $260.06, implying approximately 40% upside from current levels. The highest forecast comes from Evercore, which sees the stock reaching $352, while the most conservative target sits at $250 from Goldman Sachs and several other firms.
Investor positioning ahead of earnings appears optimistic but not excessively stretched. Institutional ownership remains high, and options market activity suggests expectations for volatility around the announcement but no consensus on direction. The stock's 29% year-to-date gain through February 6 demonstrates resilience during broader market weakness, though it remains well below the October peak that valued Nvidia above $180 per share on a pre-split basis.