Nvidia and OpenAI abandon unfinished US$100 billion deal

This illustration photograph shows screens displaying a portrait of the president of U.S. chipmaker Nvidia Jensen Huang and the logo of the company in Toulouse, southwestern France on Feb. 18, 2026. Photo by Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP via Getty Images

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Nvidia Corp. is close to finalising a US$30 billion investment into OpenAI that will replace the long-term US$100 billion commitment agreed by the companies last year, as part of a massive new funding round for the AI start-up.

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The world’s most valuable company is in the final stages of negotiations with OpenAI, and its investment could be concluded as early as this weekend, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

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The US$30 billion equity investment forms part of a larger funding round that is on track to raise more than US$100 billion and will value the ChatGPT maker at US$730 billion, not including the new money, the people said.

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OpenAI will reinvest much of its new capital into Nvidia hardware, but the companies would not proceed with the US$100 billion multiyear investment partnership they announced in September, the people added.

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The retreat from the agreement announced to much fanfare in September comes amid investor jitters about the health of the AI sector that have helped drive U.S. tech stocks down 17 per cent since the start of the year.

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Last year’s deal, announced as a “letter of intent,” closely tied together the two companies at the heart of the AI boom — and helped to propel Nvidia above US$5 trillion in market value a few weeks later.

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It accelerated a frenzied period of dealmaking for Sam Altman‘s AI start-up, which forged complex deals with rival chipmakers AMD and Broadcom and cloud providers including Oracle.

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Although welcomed by stock market investors at the time, the spate of agreements tying together suppliers, customers and investors in the AI sector prompted concern among some analysts about their circular structure and a growing bubble in the space.

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Under the terms of the US$100 billion agreement, Nvidia would have invested ten increments of US$10 billion as OpenAI’s demand for computing power grew over several years, in return for a significant stake in the AI start-up.

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OpenAI in turn planned to buy millions of Nvidia’s AI processors as part of plans to deploy up to 10 gigawatts of new computing capacity.

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But the deal never progressed from a memorandum of understanding to a formal agreement. In January, The Wall Street Journal reported the deal was “on ice.” It has now been replaced by a more straightforward arrangement in which Nvidia will invest up to US$30 billion in return for OpenAI stock.

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That funding will support the build-out of gigawatts of new computing capacity and will probably be followed by further deals over time, according to people close to the companies.

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OpenAI and Nvidia declined to comment.

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Altman and Nvidia chief Jensen Huang have tried to dispel reports of cooling relations between their companies. “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,” Altman said on X earlier this month.