Nvidia to invest $100B in OpenAI

NVIDIA will invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI and supply it with data center chips, the companies said on Monday, marking a tie-up between two of the highest-profile players in the global artificial intelligence (AI) race.

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The move underscores the increasingly overlapping interests of the various tech giants developing advanced AI systems. The deal gives chipmaker Nvidia a financial stake in the world’s most prominent AI company, which is already an important customer.

At the same time, the investment gives OpenAI the cash and access it needs to buy advanced chips that are key to maintaining its dominance in an increasingly competitive landscape. Rivals of both companies may be concerned the partnership will undermine competition.

The deal will involve two separate but intertwined transactions, according to a person close to OpenAI. Nvidia will start investing in OpenAI for nonvoting shares once the deal is finalized, then OpenAI can use the cash to buy Nvidia’s chips, the person said.

“Everything starts with compute,” OpenAI Chief Executive Officer 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.”

The two companies signed a letter of intent to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems for OpenAI and said they aim to finalize partnership details in the coming weeks. The power for those chips is equivalent to the needs of more than eight million US households.