NVIDIA's deep investment in OpenAI is a strategic bet on its potential to become a dominant hyperscaler like Google or Meta. This reframes the relationship from a simple vendor-customer dynamic to a long-term partnership with immense financial upside, justifying the significant capital commitment.

The $100B NVIDIA deal was more than equity; it was a strategic partnership enabling OpenAI to leverage NVIDIA’s financial strength to raise the massive debt needed for its infrastructure build-out. With the deal faltering, OpenAI's ability to fund its own hardware expansion independently is now in question.

Despite powering the AI revolution, Jensen Huang's strategy of selling GPUs to everyone, rather than hoarding them to build a dominant AGI model himself, suggests he doesn't believe in a winner-take-all AGI future. True believers would keep the key resource for themselves.

If NVIDIA's CEO truly believed AGI was imminent, the most rational action would be to hoard his company's chips to build it himself. His current strategy of selling this critical resource to all players is the strongest evidence that he does not believe in a near-term superintelligence breakthrough.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang pushed back against reports of a stalled $100B investment in OpenAI, clarifying it was never a firm commitment but rather an "invitation to invest up to $100 billion." This highlights how announcements in the "press release economy" can be misconstrued as binding deals, creating market confusion.

NVIDIA funds OpenAI's compute purchases (of NVIDIA chips) with an equity investment. This effectively gives OpenAI a discount without lowering market prices, while NVIDIA gains equity in a key customer and locks in massive sales.

Despite being key backers of OpenAI, Microsoft and NVIDIA are investing heavily in its competitor, Anthropic. This signals a strategic shift by tech giants to diversify their AI investments, ensuring no single lab becomes dominant and fostering a more competitive ecosystem.

Jensen Huang counters accusations of inflating revenue by investing in customers. He clarifies the investment in OpenAI is a separate, opportunistic financial bet, while chip sales are driven by market demand and funded independently by OpenAI's own capital raising—not by NVIDIA's investment.

After publicly celebrating a massive $100 billion investment plan with OpenAI, NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang is now dismissing the figure as absurd. This pivot appears to be a form of corporate gaslighting, attempting to control the narrative after the deal stalled, despite prior press releases and interviews.