In September 2025, Nvidia and OpenAI unveiled a letter of intent, revealing Nvidia's interest in investing up to $100 billion in OpenAI's AI infrastructure. Initially, both companies anticipated finalizing the specifics within a few weeks. However, five months have gone by without a conclusive agreement. Nvidia's CEO has now stated that the $100 billion figure was 'never a commitment,' and reports from Reuters suggest that OpenAI has been exploring alternatives to Nvidia's chips since the previous year.
According to Reuters, OpenAI has expressed dissatisfaction with the speed of some Nvidia chips, particularly for inference tasks—an integral process where a trained AI model generates responses to user queries. This issue reportedly became evident in OpenAI’s Codex, an AI tool for code generation, where staff linked some performance limitations to Nvidia’s GPU-based architecture.
Following the publication of the Reuters article and a subsequent dip in Nvidia's stock price, both companies have attempted to publicly mend their relationship. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took to platform X to affirm, “We love working with NVIDIA and they make the best AI chips in the world. We hope to be a gigantic customer for a very long time. I don’t get where all this insanity is coming from.”
What Happened to the $100 Billion?
The initial announcement outlined an audacious plan: 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems for OpenAI, a scale requiring power output akin to about 10 nuclear reactors. At that time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang indicated to CNBC that this undertaking would match Nvidia’s total GPU shipments for the year, describing it as a 'giant project.'
However, the agreement was always a non-binding letter of intent. Recently, Huang has adjusted expectations around the investment figure. During a session with reporters in Taiwan, he stated that the $100 billion was 'never a commitment.' He clarified that OpenAI had proposed the potential involvement 'up to' that amount with an intent to 'invest one step at a time.'
Despite this clarification, Huang emphasized Nvidia's intentions to play a significant role in OpenAI's endeavors, declaring, “We are going to make a huge investment in OpenAI. Sam is closing the round, and we will absolutely be involved. We will invest a great deal of money, probably the largest investment we've ever made.” Yet, when asked if this would reach $100 billion, Huang simply responded, “No, no, nothing like that.”