Nvidia CEO Calls OpenAI Rift 'Nonsense,' Confirms Massive Investment

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says reports of friction between his company and OpenAI are 'nonsense,' confirming on Saturday that the chipmaker is moving forward with a massive investment in the ChatGPT creator. Speaking to reporters outside a restaurant in Taipei, Huang denied recent claims that the deal had stalled, stating instead that it will likely be the largest investment Nvidia has ever made.



The comments serve as a direct rebuttal to a report from the Wall Street Journal on Friday, which suggested Nvidia executives were getting cold feet. That report claimed Huang had privately expressed concerns about OpenAI's lack of business discipline and the growing threat posed by competitors like Google and Anthropic. Huang dismissed that narrative entirely this weekend, emphasizing his strong relationship with the leadership team. "I believe in OpenAI, the work that they do is incredible," he said. "I really love working with Sam."


While Huang didn't put a specific dollar figure on the deal, he clarified that Nvidia isn't footing the entire bill for the reported $100 billion fundraising round. When asked if Nvidia's slice would exceed that amount, he said, "No, no, nothing like that," leaving the specific targets for OpenAI CEO Sam Altman to announce. The funding round is expected to value the startup at roughly $830 billion and reportedly includes participation from other tech giants, including Amazon, which is in talks to contribute tens of billions.

The setting of Huang's comments underscores just how central Nvidia has become to the global technology supply chain. He was speaking after hosting a "trillion-dollar dinner" with key suppliers in Taiwan, including executives from TSMC. The manufacturing giant finds itself at the center of the AI boom, with recent data indicating Nvidia is on track to overtake Apple as TSMC's largest customer this year. While Apple has historically dominated the foundry's order book to build iPhones and Macs, the insatiable demand for the AI accelerators Nvidia designs is rapidly shifting the balance of power in the semiconductor industry.

This funding is critical for OpenAI as it burns through cash to train increasingly complex models. Those models are becoming deeply embedded in the consumer landscape, including on the iPhone. Apple has integrated ChatGPT directly into iOS to handle advanced queries for Siri and recently launched an Apple Music integration for the service. At the same time, Apple has hedged its bets by partnering with Google to power parts of its upcoming AI features, aiming to avoid the massive infrastructure costs that companies like Nvidia and Microsoft are absorbing.

The influx of cash will likely also aid OpenAI's ambitions beyond software. The company is actively working on a dedicated hardware device, a project led by former Apple design chief Jony Ive. While details on that device remain scarce, securing stable backing from the world's leading chipmaker ensures OpenAI will have the compute resources necessary to drive whatever hardware or software it releases next.


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[via Reuters]