Wall Street advances as Nvidia eases AI growth concerns

The tech-heavy Nasdaq has outperformed peers after Nvidia's blockbuster results reaffirmed the strength of the AI boom and fuelled gains in technology stocks.

Nvidia shares jumped 7.3 per cent after the chip giant's robust forecast illustrated relentless demand for AI computing, even as it warned that shortages of memory components could curb the pace of the industry's growth.

The report met lofty investor expectations and bolstered the view that the tech rally still has room to run, with companies at the heart of AI buildout continuing to deliver impressive growth.

"The market rewarded the demand outlook. Nvidia has made quarterly beats routine," said Matthew Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management.

But "a company can beat the quarter, raise the outlook, and still leave investors asking harder questions than the ones it just answered," he said.

Salesforce surged 14.4 per cent after raising annual revenue and profit forecasts, and rolling out a new plug-in integrated with Anthropic's Claude AI models.

CrowdStrike climbed 14.5 per cent after the cybersecurity software provider raised its annual revenue forecast and topped second-quarter earnings estimate.

Both these reports calmed worries that advanced AI tools could upend the traditional software industry, boosting investor appetite for beaten-down software stocks and narrowing the gap with semiconductors, which are seen as the primary beneficiaries of the AI boom.

US chip makers Micron Technology and Marvell Technology advanced about 1.0 per cent each.

ServiceNow added 5.0 per cent and Palo Alto Networks gained 8.5 per cent.

In early trading on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 35.72 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 53,499.60, the S&P 500 gained 26.74 points, or 0.35 per cent, to 7,702.44, while the Nasdaq Composite added 217.12 points, or 0.83 per cent, to 26,342.87.

Moderna slipped 4.6 per cent after unveiling a $US2 billion ($A2.8 billion) convertible bonds sale while HP slumped 9.0 per cent after its PC unit shipments and margins declined in the third quarter.

Discount retailer Dollar General fell 3.3 per cent after it maintained its annual sales forecast.

With Nvidia results out, investor attention turns to Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh's first Jackson Hole address on Friday for hints on the central bank's stance on the latest inflation data and the US Treasury's efforts to tame yields.