By Arsheeya Bajwa, Deepa Seetharaman and Stephen Nellis, Reuters
Nvidia will invest up to $100 billion in Open AI. (File photo) Photo: AFP
Chipmaker Nvidia will invest up to $100 billion (US dollars) in OpenAI and provide it with data center chips, the companies said on Monday, a tie-up between two of the highest-profile leaders in the global artificial intelligence race.
The deal, which will see Nvidia start delivering chips as soon as late 2026, will involve two separate but intertwined transactions, according to a person close to OpenAI.
The startup will pay Nvidia in cash for chips, and Nvidia will invest in OpenAI for non-controlling shares, the person said.
The first $10 billion of Nvidia's investment in OpenAI, which was most recently valued at $500 billion, will begin when the two companies reach a definitive agreement for OpenAI to purchase Nvidia chips
Nvidia did not respond to immediate requests for clarification about the deal. The pact is among a spate of agreements between major technology players that includes years of investment in OpenAI from Microsoft and a deal last week between Nvidia and Intel to collaborate on AI chips.
The two companies signed a letter of intent for a landmark strategic partnership to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia chips for OpenAI's AI infrastructure.
They aim to finalize partnership details in the coming weeks, with the first deployment phase targeted to come online in the second half of 2026.
"Everything starts with compute," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement.
"Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future, and we will utilize what we're building with Nvidia to both create new AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses with them at scale."
Nvidia shares were up 4.4 percent while shares of Oracle, which partners with OpenAI, SoftBank and Microsoft on the $500 billion Stargate AI data center project, gained nearly 5 percent.
Nvidia's investment comes days after it committed $5 billion to struggling chipmaker Intel.
OpenAI and its backer, Microsoft, also announced earlier this month that they have signed a non-binding deal for new relationship terms that would allow for OpenAI's restructuring into a for-profit company.
Nvidia also backed OpenAI in a $6.6 billion funding round in October 2024. However, the world's most valuable firm making another sizeable investment in OpenAI could lead to antitrust scrutiny.
The Trump administration has taken a much lighter touch on competition issues compared with former President Joe Biden's antitrust enforcers.
In June 2024 the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission reached a deal that cleared the way for potential antitrust investigations into the dominant roles that Microsoft, OpenAI and Nvidia play in the artificial intelligence industry.
-Reuters
