NVIDIA Signals Investment Exit in OpenAI and Anthropic

NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said the chipmaker’s most recent investments in OpenAI and Anthropic are likely to be its last in the two artificial intelligence companies, as both prepare for potential stock market listings this year.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference on March 4, Huang suggested that the opportunity to invest $100 billion in OpenAI is “probably not in the cards”, given that the ChatGPT creator is expected to go public later this year.

NVIDIA and OpenAI had announced a $100 billion agreement in September last year. However, the semiconductor giant has since finalised a $30 billion investment in OpenAI, which Huang indicated may be the final chance to “invest in a consequential company like this”.

OpenAI is laying the groundwork for an initial public offering that could value the company at as much as $1 trillion.

Huang added that NVIDIA’s $10 billion investment in Anthropic will probably also be its last. The start-up is reportedly exploring plans to go public this year, although Anthropic, currently embroiled in a dispute with the Pentagon, has said it has not taken a final decision on an IPO.

In February, the Financial Times reported that NVIDIA and OpenAI had abandoned their previously announced $100 billion deal amid growing doubts about the health of the AI sector. Some analysts had raised concerns about the circular nature of such arrangements. A substantial investment in Anthropic would have made NVIDIA a significant shareholder in one of its largest customers, while much of the capital injected into the startup was expected to be spent on purchasing the company’s own high-performance AI processors, potentially fuelling concerns about inflated valuations and mutual dependency.