Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company is unlikely to make additional investments in OpenAI and Anthropic, indicating that its recent stakes in the artificial intelligence developers may be the last before the companies pursue public listings. Huang made the remarks Wednesday during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference in San Francisco.
The comments come as Nvidia continues to supply the specialized chips used by both companies to run large-scale AI systems. Huang said that once the firms move toward public offerings, opportunities for further private investment from Nvidia would effectively close.
Nvidia Points To Strategic Ecosystem Investments
Following Huang’s remarks, Nvidia did not expand on the reasoning behind the decision. A company spokesperson referred to comments Huang made during Nvidia’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
In that call, Huang said Nvidia’s investments are “focused very squarely, strategically on expanding and deepening our ecosystem reach.”
Nvidia previously invested in both OpenAI and Anthropic as part of that strategy. Those investments placed the chipmaker in a position within the rapidly growing AI developer ecosystem while also supplying hardware that powers the companies’ models.
Circular Investment Structure Draws Attention
The relationship between Nvidia and OpenAI has also drawn attention because of the structure of the investment and procurement arrangements between the companies.
When Nvidia first announced plans in September to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, MIT Sloan professor Michael Cusumano described the arrangement to the Financial Times as largely circular. He noted that Nvidia was planning to invest $100 billion in OpenAI stock while OpenAI was expected to purchase a comparable amount of Nvidia hardware.
Cusumano said the arrangement was “kind of a wash,” given the reciprocal financial flow between the companies.
The scale of Nvidia’s eventual participation in OpenAI’s financing changed over time. As part of OpenAI’s $110 billion funding round finalized last week, Nvidia invested $30 billion, a figure smaller than the previously discussed commitment.
Huang dismissed speculation of tension between Nvidia and OpenAI, describing suggestions of conflict between the companies as “nonsense.”
Anthropic Relationship Also Faces Strains
Nvidia’s relationship with Anthropic has also attracted attention in recent months. In November, Nvidia announced a $10 billion investment in the company.
Two months later, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos and criticized the sale of high-performance AI processors by U.S. chipmakers to certain Chinese customers. Without naming Nvidia directly, Amodei compared the practice to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.”
Developments involving Anthropic continued shortly before Huang’s appearance at the conference. The Trump administration placed Anthropic on a federal blacklist that bars U.S. government agencies and military contractors from using the company’s technology.
The decision followed Anthropic’s refusal to allow its AI models to be used for autonomous weapons or large-scale domestic surveillance.
Rival AI Companies Move In Different Directions
Shortly after the blacklist announcement, OpenAI reached an agreement with the Pentagon. Anthropic criticized the move and described it as “mendacious.”
The reaction among users was visible in app rankings. Within 24 hours of the developments, Anthropic’s Claude application rose to the top position in Apple’s U.S. App Store, surpassing ChatGPT. Data from Sensor Tower showed that Claude had ranked outside the top 100 at the end of January.
The differing developments around OpenAI and Anthropic place Nvidia in the position of holding stakes in two companies whose strategies and partnerships are moving in different directions.
Huang said the expected public offerings of the AI companies would likely mark the end of Nvidia’s direct investment opportunities in them.
Featured image credits: Wikimedia Commons
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