Nvidia, the dominant supplier of AI-computing infrastructure, has authorised a record stock buyback of roughly £118 billion (around EUR 132 billion), lifting its total repurchase capacity to approximately £185 billion (around EUR 207 billion) through fiscal year 2028. It stands as the largest share-repurchase authorisation in corporate history.
The decision arrives at a moment when the artificial intelligence boom is confronting a stark reality. Nvidia designs the high-performance chips, GPUs, servers and software that run AI data centres, and it remains the one company within the ecosystem generating substantial monetary gains.
During the second quarter of fiscal 2027, Nvidia reported revenue of around EUR 85 billion (approximately £76 billion), a 106% increase year on year, and returned close to EUR 23 billion (about £20 billion) to shareholders through repurchases and dividends. Chief executive Jensen Huang ranks among the top ten billionaires globally.
Circularity and Debt Weigh on the AI Ecosystem
The AI startups and laboratories purchasing Nvidia’s compute have yet to demonstrate to investors that they can produce standalone revenue. Even the largest spenders beyond Nvidia, the so-called AI hyperscalers, are taking on hundreds of billions of dollars in new debt, with around EUR 264 billion (roughly £237 billion) of direct bond issuance expected in 2026 alone.
A tracking website titled “Is AI Profitable Yet?” monitors cumulative monthly spending against revenue across most major AI companies. The single-developer dashboard sets out to answer whether the AI industry as a whole has recovered the money invested in it so far. The current answer is no.
According to Robin Wigglesworth, a Financial Times reporter and author of the forthcoming book A Fabulous Debt, AI startups are exhausting investor cash and passing it directly to Nvidia to purchase chips, despite the startups themselves not turning a profit. He also highlighted the degree of circularity within the ecosystem, whereby capital is recycled among a small group of companies that serve as one another’s investors, customers, suppliers, lenders and backstops.
Nvidia holds the most advantaged economic position in the supply chain. Because it sells the equivalent of picks and shovels in the AI gold rush, it is paid whenever any platform, startup or enterprise builds or upgrades AI capacity, even before those buyers show whether they can cover the cost.
A Confidence Signal for Nervous Investors
The authorised buyback functions primarily as a confidence exercise. Nvidia’s board is signalling to Wall Street that it expects cash flows to remain robust, even as concerns about an AI bubble and potential threats to business models continue to grow.
Ed Zitron, an AI critic who hosts the podcast Better Offline, described the move as an attempt to reassure anxious investors. He noted that authorising a buyback is not a legal commitment; it does not oblige Nvidia to purchase any given number of shares, or any shares at all. The company has made substantial pledges previously, including a EUR 88 billion (about £79
