Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the chipmaker will likely stop making additional investments in artificial intelligence companies OpenAI and Anthropic, citing their expected initial public offerings later this year.
Huang made the remarks during the Morgan Stanley Tech, Media and Telecom conference, where he explained that once the two AI firms go public, the window for further private investment will effectively close.
The comments signal a shift in Nvidia’s approach to the rapidly expanding AI sector, where the company already plays a dominant role as the primary supplier of high-performance chips used to train and run advanced artificial intelligence systems.
Nvidia already earns significant revenue selling the graphics processing units that power the infrastructure used by both OpenAI and Anthropic.
When asked for additional details following Huang’s remarks, a company spokesman pointed to comments from Nvidia’s fourth-quarter earnings call.
During that call, Huang said Nvidia’s investment strategy is aimed at strengthening its broader artificial intelligence ecosystem rather than simply holding equity stakes.
“All of our investments are focused very squarely, strategically on expanding and deepening our ecosystem reach,” Huang said.
Industry observers say Nvidia’s earlier investments in the two companies may have already achieved that goal by helping accelerate demand for the company’s AI hardware.
Questions have also been raised about the structure of some of the investment arrangements between Nvidia and its AI partners.
When Nvidia previously announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI last year, some analysts pointed out the circular nature of the relationship. OpenAI simultaneously committed to purchasing massive amounts of Nvidia chips to power its computing infrastructure.
MIT Sloan professor Michael Cusumano described the arrangement as “kind of a wash,” noting that Nvidia would invest in OpenAI while OpenAI would spend comparable amounts buying Nvidia hardware.
The final investment figure ended up being far smaller than the originally reported commitment. Nvidia ultimately invested about $30 billion in OpenAI’s $110 billion funding round last week.
The relationship between Nvidia and Anthropic has also faced tension.
Shortly after Nvidia announced a $10 billion investment in Anthropic late last year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei made controversial remarks during a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Without naming Nvidia directly, Amodei criticized American chipmakers for selling advanced processors to certain Chinese customers, comparing the practice to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.”
Recent geopolitical developments have further complicated the landscape.
The Trump administration recently placed Anthropic on a federal blacklist, preventing government agencies and military contractors from using the company’s AI technology after Anthropic refused to allow its systems to be used by the Pentagon under broader operational terms.
Shortly after that decision, OpenAI announced a new agreement with the Department of Defense.
The developments triggered tensions between the two rival AI companies, with Anthropic criticizing OpenAI’s decision and accusing the company of misrepresenting its military partnership.
Public reaction to the dispute also appeared to benefit Anthropic’s consumer-facing products. The company’s Claude chatbot quickly surged to the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store rankings, overtaking OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Data from Sensor Tower shows the app had ranked outside the top 100 just weeks earlier.
The shifting dynamics leave Nvidia holding investments in two major AI companies that are now pursuing sharply different strategies, particularly regarding government and military partnerships.
While Huang attributed Nvidia’s decision to pull back from further investments primarily to the anticipated public offerings of OpenAI and Anthropic, analysts say the broader competitive and political tensions surrounding artificial intelligence may also be influencing the company’s strategy.
Even so, Nvidia remains deeply embedded in the AI boom through its chip business, which continues to supply the hardware powering much of the industry’s rapid expansion.
