Nvidia Says It Will Grow 70% Next Year. Jensen Huang Insists the Math Is Not Circular

Speaking at Disrupt, the CEO doubled down on a staggering growth target while fending off the "circular deals" narrative

Published: 2026-09-11 Category: Quick Take Sources: TechCrunch

The number that stops the room

Jensen Huang told the audience that Nvidia expects to grow an astounding 70% next year — an eye-watering figure for a company already near the top of the world's market-cap table. "Nvidia has its finger in every pie," as the report put it, and Huang sees another year of plenty in its future. But he did not just state the number; he pre-empted the obvious pushback: he insists its deals are not circular.

That clarification matters, because the "circular" accusation is the single most persistent knock against the AI supply chain right now. When Nvidia invests in a cloud company, that cloud buys Nvidia chips; when it funds model labs, those labs rent Nvidia compute; when it backs startups, those startups spend on Nvidia infrastructure. Skeptics argue the growth is partly self-generated — money cycling from Nvidia's balance sheet back into its own order book, inflating the top line without creating real end-customer demand.

The case for the other side

Huang's rebuttal is that this under-weights the genuine, external demand curve. The AI buildout is not one customer; it is thousands — hyperscalers, sovereign states, enterprises, and new agent-driven workloads that did not exist two years ago. Even if every equity deal Nvidia signed were somehow scrubbed, the argument runs, organic demand would still be enormous. The question is whether that is reassurance or spin.

There is some evidence for the skeptic view: Nvidia committed $40 billion to AI equity deals in roughly five months, a figure that invites questions about how much of its revenue is now intertwined with its own investments. Huang's "not circular" insistence is aimed squarely at that concern, but the more he asserts it, the more it signals the market is asking.

Why this matters

The stakes are not just Nvidia's stock price. If the 70% growth is real, it means the AI buildout has more runway than the bears credit, and Nvidia remains the toll road the whole industry pays on. If it is partly circular, then when the music stops, the unwind could drag down the entire AI ecosystem that has counted on Nvidia's capex as a floor. For investors and operators alike, the distinction between "organic" and "engineered" growth is now a first-order question — and Huang's insistence is the tell that even he knows how much rides on the answer.

Source: TechCrunch, "Jensen Huang explains why Nvidia will grow an astounding 70% next year" (Sept 10, 2026).