Microsoft-Backed OpenAI Would Get $100B In Nvidia Data Center Deal

‘This investment and infrastructure partnership mark the next leap forward—deploying 10 gigawatts to power the next era of intelligence,’ Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said.

Microsoft-backed artificial intelligence model company OpenAI is finalizing a deal with Nvidia to receive up to $100 billion in investment as the two plan to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of AI data centers.

San Francisco-based OpenAI will receive the funds progressively as each gigawatt deploys, according to statements the companies published Monday. The companies expect to finalize the details in the coming weeks. The first gigawatt should deploy in the second half of 2026 on Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform.

“Nvidia and OpenAI have pushed each other for a decade, from the first DGX supercomputer to the breakthrough of ChatGPT,” Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said in a statement Monday. “This investment and infrastructure partnership mark the next leap forward—deploying 10 gigawatts to power the next era of intelligence.”

[RELATED: Microsoft Unveils ‘World’s Most Powerful AI Datacenter,’ President Brad Smith Says]

Nvidia, OpenAI Partnership

CRN has reached out to Nvidia, OpenAI and Microsoft for comment.

OpenAI co-founder and CEO Sam Altman added in a statement Monday that “compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future, and we will utilize what we’re building with Nvidia to both create new AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses with them at scale.”

The news comes days after Microsoft said it will bring the most powerful AI data center in the world–with 337.6 megawatts of capacity–online in Wisconsin and days after Nvidia said it plans to invest $5 billion in semiconductor rival Intel and jointly develop “multiple generations” of products with the chipmaker.

The 10 gigawatts of power required by the Nvidia systems comes out to between 4 million and 5 million GPUs, the amount Nvidia will ship this year in total and twice the amount shipped last year, accordingto CNBC.

As part of the deal, Nvidia will serve as OpenAI’s preferred strategic compute and networking partner for AI factory growth plans. The two companies will co-optimize roadmaps for OpenAI’s model and infrastructure software and Nvidia’s hardware and software, according to Monday’s statements.

The work Nvidia and OpenAI do will complement existing partnerships the companies have with Microsoft, Oracle and SoftBank, according to the companies’ statements Monday. OpenAI is teamed up with Oracle and SoftBank as part of the $500 billion Stargate venture. Microsoft leverages OpenAI’s models for its Azure cloud service and productivity applications.

The centers will have Nvidia systems and represent millions of graphics processing units (GPUs). OpenAI now counts more than 700 million weekly active users of its generative AI products.

Nvidia’s stock was up about 5 percent after market opening Monday, trading at about $183 a share as of Monday afternoon Eastern time.