Nvidia to invest up to $100bn in OpenAI

Companies say partnership complements projects with other collaborators including Stargate partners

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang says the partnership with Nvidia is 'the next leap forward'. AFP

Nvidia will invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as part of a data centre infrastructure project, the companies announced on Monday.

The chipmaker and artificial intelligence start-up unveiled a letter of intent for a partnership to use 10 gigawatts of Nvidia chips for OpenAI's infrastructure. The first phase would go online in the second half of 2026.

“Nvidia and OpenAI have pushed each other for a decade, from the first DGX supercomputer to the breakthrough of ChatGPT,” said Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang. “This investment and infrastructure partnership mark the next leap forward – deploying 10 gigawatts to power the next era of intelligence.”

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In the US, Nvidia shares were trading more than 3 per cent higher at $183.22 per share during afternoon trading.

As part of the partnership, OpenAI said it will work with Nvidia as a preferred strategic compute and networking partner for its plans in AI factory growth, and that they will collaborate on optimising road maps for OpenAI's model and software and Nvidia's hardware and software.

“Everything starts with compute,” OpenAI chief Sam Altman said. “Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future, and we will utilise what we’re building with Nvidia to both create AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses with them at scale.”

Speaking alongside Mr Altman in an interview with CNBC, Mr Huang said the 10 gigawatts is equivalent to between four to five million GPUS.

The two companies are expected to finalise the details of the new phase of their partnership in the coming weeks. They said the partnership will complement other projects with collaborators including Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank and partners from the Stargate project.

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The announcement comes days after Nvidia announced a $5 billion investment commitment in Intel to co-develop new data centre and PC products.

Nvidia said at the time it would collaborate with Intel to build custom x86 CPUs that Nvidia will integrate into its AI infrastructure platforms.

The US also obtained a roughly 10 per cent stake in Intel for an investment of $8.9 billion to help support the struggling chipmaker, President Donald Trump said last month.

Nvidia, the world's most valuable company with a worth of about $4.5 trillion, has become the darling for investors amid the AI boom. Its stock performance has become a market gauge for the industry.

On Monday, Nvidia's stock jumped about 4 per cent to set a record after the OpenAI deal, showing that “every time you think the AI rally has topped out, it finds another gear”, said Ipek Ozkardeskaya, a senior analyst at Swissquote Bank.

“Basically, OpenAI will need to buy an enormous amount of Nvidia chips to make this happen, and Nvidia is making sure it has a seat at the table. It’s a genius move,” she said.

“It will not only help them sell more chips to one of the world’s most famous – if not the most famous – AI chatbot makers, but it also ties them closer to OpenAI’s future. Investors loved the idea … and proved again that the company constantly finds ways to co-operate, integrate, navigate political and geopolitical jungles with grace and make its way through.”