On November 20, according to CNBC, there are variables in Nvidia’s $100 billion investment in OpenAI. Nvidia warned on Wednesday that there was no guarantee it would reach a final agreement with OpenAI.Just two months ago, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman stood side by side in San Jose, California, and jointly announced that the two parties had reached a historic cooperation agreement.
Ultraman and Huang Jenxun
The two parties announced at the time that Nvidia would invest US$100 billion in OpenAI over many years starting in 2026 as OpenAI's AI supercomputing facilities come online, but did not disclose the specific construction timetable and the construction cost of a single data center.
However, in its quarterly earnings report released on Wednesday, Nvidia reminded investors that there is a world of difference between an "announcement" and a "contract."
Nvidia said in the risk factors section of its 10-Q filing: "There can be no assurance that we will enter into a definitive agreement regarding the OpenAI collaboration opportunity or other potential investment, or that any investment will be completed on the anticipated terms."
Nvidia has been investing heavily of late, using its expanding cash reserves to financially support companies that buy its GPUs. In addition to the partnership arrangement with OpenAI, Nvidia on Wednesday highlighted a $5 billion commitment to Intel in the third quarter, as well as an agreement this week with Anthropic to invest up to $10 billion.
An OpenAI spokesperson has not yet commented, but cited Huang's remarks on the conference call, including his description of OpenAI as a "once-in-a-lifetime company" and his expectation that the investment will "deliver extraordinary returns."
but,"There can be no assurance that any investment will be completed on the terms contemplated and may not be completed at all," Nvidia said in its latest filing.
The key difference between Nvidia's investment in OpenAI and other investments or collaborations is the scale of the planned investment and the threshold that needs to be reached to release all the funds. People familiar with the matter told CNBC when the agreement was announced that Nvidia will soon allocate the first batch of US$10 billion in funding to OpenAI to help the company achieve the deployment of its first gigawatt-level computing power facility.
Despite uncertainty surrounding the investment deal announced in September, Nvidia executives remain optimistic about the company's work with OpenAI. During Nvidia's earnings call, Nvidia CFO Colette Kress emphasized OpenAI's growth potential.