Jensen Huang says Nvidia is pulling back from OpenAI and Anthropic, but his explanation raises more questions than it answers | TechCrunch

At the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference in downtown San Francisco Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said his company’s recent investments in OpenAI and Anthropic are likely to be its last in both, saying that once they go public, the opportunity to invest in a “consequential company like this” closes. It could be that simple. While firms sometimes pile into companies until practically the eve of their public debut in search of more upside, Nvidia is minting money selling the chips that power both companies — it’s not like it needs to goose its returns by pouring even more money into either one. Asked for comment earlier today following Huang’s remarks, a spokesman pointed TechCrunch to a transcript from Nvidia’s fourth-quarter earnings call, where Huang said all of Nvidia’s investments are “focused very squarely, strategically on expanding and deepening our ecosystem reach,” — which it has presumably already accomplished with its earlier stakes in both companies. Still, a few other dynamics might also explain the pullback, including the circular nature of these arrangements themselves. When Nvidia first announced it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI last September, MIT Sloan professor Michael Cusumano blandly described it to the Financial Times as “kind of a wash,” observing that “Nvidia is investing $100 billion in OpenAI stock, and OpenAI is saying they are going to buy $100 billion or more of Nvidia chips.” That could explain why the comm...