The AI arms race just got a major jolt: Nvidia announced it will invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI to help build a new wave of data centers powered by Nvidia’s chips.
Partnership details call for OpenAI to deploy systems requiring 10 gigawatts of power — roughly equal to 4–5 million GPUs, about as many as Nvidia will ship this year and double its 2024 output, according to CEO Jensen Huang.
Nvidia stock surged nearly 4% on the news, adding $170 billion in market value and pushing its capitalization to almost $4.5 trillion. The deal underscores how closely linked the two tech giants are: demand for Nvidia’s GPUs exploded after OpenAI released ChatGPT in 2022, and OpenAI still depends on Nvidia hardware to train and run its models.
The scale of the project is practically without precedent in tech; for comparison, 10 gigawatts is close to the power output of 10 large nuclear reactors. It highlights not just the surging demand for AI services but also the energy and hardware footprint required to fuel them.
