Jensen Huang says Nvidia is pulling back from OpenAI and Anthropic, but his explanation raises more questions than it answers

Source: TechCrunch

Nvidia’s Investment Pullback at the Morgan Stanley Conference

At the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference in downtown San Francisco, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company’s recent investments in OpenAI and Anthropic are likely to be its last in both firms. He explained that once these companies go public, the opportunity to invest in a “consequential company like this” closes.

Why Nvidia May Be Scaling Back

• Financial rationale – Nvidia already profits from selling the chips that power OpenAI and Anthropic, so it does not need to pour additional capital into either company to boost its returns.
• Strategic focus – In a transcript from Nvidia’s Q4 earnings call, Huang said all of Nvidia’s investments are “focused very squarely, strategically on expanding and deepening our ecosystem reach,” a goal that has already been met with its earlier stakes.

The OpenAI Deal

When Nvidia announced in September that it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, MIT Sloan professor Michael Cusumano described the arrangement to the Financial Times as “kind of a wash,” noting that “Nvidia is investing $100 billion in OpenAI stock, and OpenAI is saying they are going to buy $100 billion or more of Nvidia chips.”

The commitment later shrank: the investment Nvidia finalized as part of OpenAI’s $110 billion funding round was $30 billion – well short of the original pledge. Huang later said investing the full amount is “probably not in the cards.”

The Anthropic Relationship

In November, Nvidia announced a $10 billion investment and a “deep technology partnership” with Anthropic. Two months later, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, speaking at Davos, compared the practice of U.S. chip makers selling high‑performance AI processors to approved Chinese customers to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.” (The chip companies referenced were Nvidia and AMD.)

Recent developments affecting Anthropic

• The Trump administration blacklisted Anthropic, barring federal agencies and military contractors from using its technology after the company refused to allow its models to be used for autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.
• Within 24 hours of the blacklist, OpenAI announced a separate deal with the Pentagon, which Anthropic called “mendacious.”
• Following the Pentagon dispute, Anthropic’s Claude climbed to the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store, overtaking ChatGPT. Earlier in January, Claude was outside the top 100 according to Sensor Tower data.

Diverging Paths for Nvidia’s Portfolio Companies

Nvidia now holds stakes in two AI firms that are moving in opposite directions:

• OpenAI is aligning closely with the U.S. Defense Department.
• Anthropic has been blacklisted by the same department.

What Huang’s Comments Might Signal

Huang’s stated reason for likely ending future investments— that the IPO window closes the door on such deals— is hard to reconcile with how late‑stage private investing typically works. A more plausible interpretation is that Nvidia is exiting a rapidly complicated situation rather than simply waiting for an IPO.