Nvidia's equity investments in AI companies reached $99 billion as of July 26, up from about $7 billion a year earlier. The chip maker has poured capital into frontier AI labs, cloud providers and infrastructure firms, using its cash pile to expand its ecosystem and secure its position across the AI supply chain.
Nvidia's stake in the AI industry has grown far beyond chip sales. The company's equity investments soared more than tenfold in the past year to $99 billion. Over the same period, over $40 billion was committed in 2026. That compares with about $7 billion a year earlier and about $2.2 billion two years earlier.
Backing labs, clouds and chipmakers
The company still trails Alphabet and Amazon, which have each posted equity investments worth over $100 billion in recent earnings. Even so, capital has become a central part of Nvidia's strategy. In August, Nvidia announced partnerships aimed at mobilizing more than $500 billion of financing for its graphics processing units. It also said it would provide up to $105 billion of conditional credit support for an OpenAI data center in Ohio. Most recently, it announced it is planning to acquire AI startup Hugging Face for $12.9 billion.
Nvidia's Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress told analysts the company had invested nearly $50 billion in frontier AI labs. That included a $30 billion commitment to OpenAI in February as part of that company's $110 billion funding round. According to CNBC: "Nvidia is needed to help power this flywheel."
Neoclouds, photonics and chip rivals
Nvidia has also invested in neoclouds that rent out its chips, putting $2 billion into CoreWeave in January and $2 billion into Nebius in March. Since March, it has committed at least $6.5 billion into photonics and optical technology companies, with Lumentum, Coherent and Marvell each receiving $2 billion.
Elsewhere, Nvidia's $5 billion investment in Intel has grown to a value of $30 billion. Its SpaceX holding was worth $21 billion as of June. The chip giant's stock has risen 33% over the past 12 months. Its revenue jumped 106% to $96.2 billion in its fiscal second quarter.
Source: CNBC
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