US chipmaker Nvidia has announced plans to invest up to $100bn (£73bn) in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, in what both firms are calling a “strategic partnership.”
The investment will focus on building data centres and high-performance infrastructure to power OpenAI’s next generation of artificial intelligence systems. Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, said the funding represents “the next leap forward” in AI.
Chief executive Jensen Huang described the partnership as key to “powering the next era of intelligence,” while OpenAI said it would help advance its mission of developing artificial general intelligence (AGI) “that benefits all of humanity.”
The announcement follows a string of high-profile Nvidia investments, including $5bn in Intel and £2bn in the UK’s AI sector. Nvidia and OpenAI also highlighted ongoing collaborations with Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank, and Stargate.
OpenAI, which now reports over 700 million weekly active users, said details of the deal will be finalised in the coming weeks.
Geopolitical Pressures
The partnership comes as US AI firms face rising competition from China, particularly with the emergence of DeepSeek-R1. At the same time, Nvidia is navigating political headwinds:
- Last week, China accused Nvidia of violating anti-monopoly laws, without specifying details.
- Beijing reportedly ordered major tech companies to halt purchases of Nvidia’s AI chips.
- Nvidia and rival AMD recently agreed to pay the US government 15% of Chinese revenues to secure export licences, after Washington restricted AI chip sales to China.
Despite these challenges, Nvidia’s stock closed up 4% on Monday following the announcement.
OpenAI cofounder and CEO Sam Altman said the partnership would “create new AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses at scale,” while OpenAI president Greg Brockman noted that the company had been working closely with Nvidia “since the early days.”
