In a move that redefines the concept of "Big Tech synergy," Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has finalised a staggering $20 billion investment in OpenAI. The deal, confirmed early this morning by multiple sources, including Reuters, serves as the centrepiece of OpenAI’s massive $100 billion Series G funding round.
This capital infusion officially catapults OpenAI’s valuation to a historic $830 billion, positioning it as one of the most valuable private entities in history, eclipsing the market caps of legacy giants like Berkshire Hathaway and Meta.
Just days ago, rumours swirled that the partnership was on the rocks, as reports from the Wall Street Journal suggested that Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang had privately expressed doubts about OpenAI’s business discipline. However, today’s news puts those rumours to rest, with Huang stating during a briefing in Taipei that they are making what is probably the largest investment the company has ever made. He emphasised that OpenAI is the bedrock of the generative era and that Nvidia's commitment is to ensure it has the compute capacity to reach the next frontier.
Industry analysts are calling this the ultimate "closed-loop" investment because by providing $20 billion in liquidity, Nvidia is effectively ensuring that its largest customer has the war chest needed to purchase Nvidia’s next-generation "Vera Rubin" platform, a chip architecture capable of 8 exaflops of AI performance per rack. However, the deal isn't without its critics. Some market observers, including NYU Professor Scott Galloway, have raised alarms regarding "circular funding," where a chip supplier funds its own customers to artificially sustain demand.
Despite these concerns, OpenAI’s projected 2026 revenue of $25 billion suggests that enterprise demand for GPT-6 and its "Agentic AI" tools is very real.
For the broader industry, this deal carries significant weight as the competitive moat widens, making it nearly impossible for smaller "frontier" labs to compete when the cost of entry is now measured in hundreds of billions. With a valuation nearing $1 trillion, all eyes are now on a potential OpenAI IPO in late 2026.
Furthermore, this $20 billion check effectively locks OpenAI into the Nvidia ecosystem for the foreseeable future, despite Sam Altman’s public flirtation with custom silicon and rival chips from Groq.