Nvidia now has $99 billion invested across the AI industry, here’s where the money is going
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Nvidia now has $99 billion invested across the AI industry, here’s where the money is going")
Nvidia now has $99 billion invested across the AI industry, here’s where the money is going Photograph: (NVIDIA)
Nvidia’s equity investments have surged to $99 billion from about $7 billion a year earlier. The chip giant is backing AI labs, cloud providers, infrastructure and emerging technologies, using its capital to strengthen the ecosystem around its GPUs.
Nvidia is becoming much more than the company behind the world’s most powerful AI chips.
The chip giant’s equity investments have surged to $99 billion, up from about $7 billion a year earlier and roughly $2.2 billion two years ago, according to its latest regulatory filing. Nvidia also disclosed another $25 billion in equity investment commitments as of July 26. The rapid expansion shows how Nvidia is using its enormous financial strength to shape the AI industry around its hardware. Instead of simply selling GPUs, Nvidia is increasingly putting money into the companies that need those GPUs.
Where is Nvidia putting its billions?
A large part of the strategy is focused on frontier AI labs.
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said the company had invested nearly $50 billion in frontier AI labs. Nvidia announced a $30 billion investment in OpenAI in February as part of OpenAI’s $110 billion funding round.
Nvidia is also backing the rapidly growing group of so-called neoclouds companies that buy large numbers of GPUs and rent computing power to AI customers. It invested $2 billion in CoreWeave in January and another $2 billion in Nebius in March. Nvidia said the Nebius investment would help accelerate its build-out of a full-stack AI cloud platform. The strategy has now expanded beyond cloud and AI models.
Nvidia is betting on the technology behind AI
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Nvidia has also been investing heavily in optical and photonics technology, which uses light to move data rather than traditional electrical connections. Companies including Lumentum, Coherent and Marvell have each received major investments, according to CNBC’s analysis. The technology could become increasingly important as AI systems require faster movement of enormous amounts of data. Nvidia has also benefited from the rising value of some of its investments. Its $5 billion Intel investment has reportedly risen to around $30 billion, while its SpaceX holding was valued at about $21 billion as of June, according to CNBC.
Why Nvidia is doing this
The strategy is simple: help the AI ecosystem grow, and Nvidia can grow with it. Nvidia itself says its investments are intended to enhance growth opportunities, cultivate its ecosystem and strengthen its competitive position.
That creates a powerful cycle. AI companies need computing power. Nvidia supplies the GPUs. By investing in those companies, Nvidia can also help them raise the capital needed to buy more computing infrastructure.
The result is a company that increasingly sits at several levels of the AI economy supplier, investor, infrastructure partner and, increasingly, owner. Nvidia’s $99 billion portfolio shows just how much that role has expanded.
