The world's most valuable company has again defied eye-watering forecasts, delivering a bumper set of financial results.

Nvidia, the chipmaker valued at more than $5.1bn (£3.8bn) and powering much of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, said gross profit hit $133.3bn (£98bn) in the first half of the year.

The firm's results have become a bellwether for investment in AI and the health of the overall economy as companies and governments invest in the tech and necessary infrastructure, particularly data centres, that powers it.

The question of when a slowdown could come remains unanswered, as not only did Nvidia's revenue rise 106% to $96.2bn (£71bn) in the three months up to July, since the same time last year, it forecast revenue growth of 70% next financial year, surpassing Wall Street estimates.

Its co-founder and chief executive, Jensen Huang, was characteristically bullish, saying "demand is accelerating".

"We have a golden age of new AI labs and startups," he added.

Why does Nvidia matter?

Originally a maker of graphics hardware for gamers, Nvidia now provides the chips that power AI systems such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, as well as the UK's most powerful supercomputer.

Nvidia has become a significant stock market player.

Due to the number of highly valued shares it has issued, it comprises more than 7% of the entire S&P 500, a major US stock index made of companies relied on for stability and profitability.

Why does the AI boom matter?

Building data centres especially has given a major boost to the US economy.

Faltering AI expansion, therefore, would affect the world's largest economies, which in turn would impact the UK and global economies.

Data centre revenue for the three months to the end of July hit a record $89bn (£65.5bn), up 117% from a year ago.

News that Nvidia had agreed a deal with the internet-powering cloud services provider, Amazon Web Services (AWS), to deploy two million AI-fuelling graphics processing units also helped its shares rise 4% in after-hours trading.

Investors had previously shrugged off results that, on the face of it, seemed positive due to high expectations.