NVIDIA Writes a $20B Check and Doubles Down on OpenAI

NVIDIA is closing in on what would be its largest investment ever, a roughly $20 billion stake in OpenAI as part of the AI startup’s latest funding round. 

The deal isn’t final, and terms could still change, but multiple reports from Bloomberg and Reuters suggest Nvidia’s contribution is close to being wrapped up.

If the deal goes through, it would strengthen an already tight relationship between Nvidia and OpenAI. It would also turn months of unclear messaging, drawn-out negotiations, and public walk-backs into something tangible. In short, the deal would fix all the weird.

A big check, but not a blank one

Earlier reports put OpenAI’s current fundraising target at up to $100 billion, with a valuation around $830 billion. Amazon and SoftBank have both been mentioned as potential participants. 

In that context, NVIDIA’s roughly $20 billion investment stands out not just for its size, but for what it says about how central OpenAI is to Nvidia’s view of future AI infrastructure demand.

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has been pretty direct about that part. While visiting Taipei, he told reporters, “We will definitely participate in the next round of financing because it’s such a good investment,” adding that it could be “the largest investment we’ve ever made.”

A previous plan from September, which outlined up to $100 billion in investments tied to building 10 gigawatts of AI data centers for OpenAI, has repeatedly been described by NVIDIA as nonbinding. In an SEC filing, it was even labeled a “letter of intent.” 

The $20 billion now under discussion is way more straightforward.

Clearing the air after a loud few months

The path to this point has not exactly been smooth. A Wall Street Journal report recently suggested that talks on the broader $100 billion plan had stalled, with doubts about NVIDIA and frustration over how long negotiations were dragging on. 

Separately, Reuters reported that OpenAI has explored alternative chip providers for a portion of its inference workloads, citing performance concerns with some NVIDIA hardware.

Those reports sparked headlines about tension between the two companies. Both sides have pushed back. 

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman publicly defended NVIDIA after the Reuters report, saying the company makes “the best AI chips in the world” and that OpenAI hopes to remain a “gigantic customer for a very long time”.

This really grounds the conversation. OpenAI can test other options on the edges, but NVIDIA is still doing most of the heavy lifting in training and running its models.

Why this deal still makes sense

At the end of the day, OpenAI needs an enormous and steady supply of compute to keep pushing its models forward. NVIDIA, meanwhile, benefits when the most influential AI labs keep building bigger, more demanding systems that rely on its hardware.

Yes, things are changing. Inference is getting more expensive, memory matters more than it used to, and newer AI approaches are putting different kinds of pressure on infrastructure. 

But none of that makes a close supplier relationship any less important. If anything, it raises the stakes.

If this deal does indeed go through, it’s a practical move more than a symbolic one. It puts real capital behind a partnership that continues to play a central role in the AI buildout.

If you want more context on where this fits in the bigger picture, back in 2025, OpenAI raised a record $40 billion in funding at a $300 billion valuation, a round that helped set the stage for today’s much greater capital-raising efforts and discussions around AI infrastructure partnerships.