Graphics chipmaker Nvidia said the sharp growth of its deep learning technology helped the company wrap up its first fiscal quarter of 2017 above estimates.

The Santa Clara, Calif.-based company reported a net income of $196 million, or 33 cents per share (statement).

Non-GAAP earnings were 46 cents per share on revenue of $1.3 billion, up 13 percent year-over-year.

Wall Street was looking for earnings of 32 cents per share with $1.26 billion in revenue.

"Accelerating our growth is deep learning, a new computing model that uses the GPU's massive computing power to learn artificial intelligence algorithms," said Nvidia CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang, in a statement. "Its adoption is sweeping one industry after another, driving demand for our GPUs."

Nvidia has been vigorously chasing success in deep learning. Last November the company unveiled its hyperscale data center platform for deep learning with the goal of encouraging developers to build networks and smart apps rooted in artificial intelligence techniques.

Referencing Nvidia's Q1, Huang also said he expects the company's Pascal GPU architecture to get a major boost from future gaming and virtual reality systems. The Pascal processors are in full production and will be available later this month, he said.

Looking ahead to the current quarter, Nvidia expects revenue of $1.35 billion, plus or minus two percent. Analysts are looking for revenue of at least $1.28 billion.

Nvidia's stock climbed roughly 4 percent in late trading following the report.