Nvidia has revealed plans to invest up to $100bn (£74bn) in OpenAI in return for a large stake in ChatGPT’s owner.
The deal also gives OpenAI the cash and access it needs to buy advanced chips that are key to maintaining its own dominance.
It is understood that, under the plans, Nvidia will buy non-voting shares in OpenAI later this year.
OpenAI can then use this cash to buy Nvidia’s chips – vital for the additional processing power it wants.
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OpenAI boss Sam Altman said: “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.”
It builds on a series of similar deals in recent weeks. Nvidia was among top US tech firms to reveal major investment in the UK during last week’s state visit by president Donald Trump.
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“This partnership complements the deep work OpenAI and Nvidia are already doing with a broad network of collaborators, including Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank and Stargate partners, focused on building the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure,” the pair said.
The deal could yet attract attention from competition regulators despite that sentiment.
At the same time OpenAI, like Google, Amazon and others, has been working on plans to build its own AI chips, aiming for a cheaper alternative to Nvidia.
Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said of the partnership: “For Nvidia, the prize is huge – every gigawatt of AI data centre capacity is worth about $50bn in revenue, meaning this project could be worth as much as $500bn.
“This move cements Nvidia’s position as the undisputed king of AI at a time when custom chips from hyperscalers and startups had started to nibble at its dominance.
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“By locking in OpenAI as a strategic partner and co-optimizing hardware and software roadmaps, Nvidia is ensuring its GPUs remain the backbone of next-gen AI infrastructure.
“The market is clearly big enough for multiple players, but this deal underscores that, when it comes to scale and ecosystem depth, Nvidia is still setting the pace – and raising the stakes for everyone else.”
