Nvidia's $100 billion OpenAI deal has seemingly vanished - Ars Technica
Summary
Nvidia's anticipated $100 billion investment in OpenAI has not materialized, raising concerns about the partnership's future and the competitive landscape in AI technology.
Why It Matters
This development highlights the volatility in high-stakes tech investments and the challenges faced by AI companies in securing reliable hardware. It reflects broader market uncertainties and the competitive pressures from rivals like Google and Anthropic, which could reshape the AI landscape.
Key Takeaways
- Nvidia's $100 billion investment in OpenAI was never a binding commitment and has not progressed as expected.
- OpenAI is reportedly exploring alternatives to Nvidia's chips due to performance concerns, impacting its AI tools like Codex.
- Nvidia's CEO has expressed doubts about OpenAI's business approach, indicating potential friction between the two companies.
- The situation raises questions about the sustainability of Nvidia's investment model, which relies on circular funding with its customers.
- Market reactions show investor concern over the partnership's viability, as Nvidia's stock price has been affected by these developments.
Text settings Story text Size Small Standard Large Width * Standard Wide Links Standard Orange * Subscribers only Learn more Minimize to nav In September 2025, Nvidia and OpenAI announced a letter of intent for Nvidia to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI’s AI infrastructure. At the time, the companies said they expected to finalize details “in the coming weeks.” Five months later, no deal has closed, Nvidia’s CEO now says the $100 billion figure was “never a commitment,” and Reuters reports that OpenAI has been quietly seeking alternatives to Nvidia chips since last year. Reuters also wrote that OpenAI is unsatisfied with the speed of some Nvidia chips for inference tasks, citing eight sources familiar with the matter. Inference is the process by which a trained AI model generates responses to user queries. According to the report, the issue became apparent in OpenAI’s Codex, an AI code-generation tool. OpenAI staff reportedly attributed some of Codex’s performance limitations to Nvidia’s GPU-based hardware. After the Reuters story published and Nvidia’s stock price took a dive, Nvidia and OpenAI have tried to smooth things over publicly. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman posted on X: “We love working with NVIDIA and they make the best AI chips in the world. We hope to be a gigantic customer for a very long time. I don’t get where all this insanity is coming from.” What happened to the $100 billion? The September announcement described a wildly ambitious plan: 10 gigawatts of Nvid...