Jensen Huang says Nvidia is pulling back from OpenAI and Anthropic
Source: Hacker News
Nvidia’s Pullback from OpenAI and Anthropic
At the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom conference in downtown San Francisco on Wednesday, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company’s recent investments in OpenAI and Anthropic are likely to be its last. He explained that once the two firms go public—anticipated later this year—the window for further investment will close.
Why Nvidia May Be Scaling Back
- Financial positioning – Nvidia is already profiting from selling the chips that power both AI startups, so additional equity stakes are not essential for its returns.
- Strategic focus – In a transcript from Nvidia’s fourth‑quarter earnings call, Huang said all investments are “focused very squarely, strategically on expanding and deepening our ecosystem reach,” a goal that the existing stakes have already helped achieve.
The OpenAI Deal
When Nvidia announced in September that it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, the arrangement raised eyebrows about a potential circular deal. MIT Sloan professor Michael Cusumano described it as “kind of a wash,” noting that Nvidia would buy a comparable amount of its own chips.
The actual commitment finalized last week as part of OpenAI’s $110 billion funding round was $30 billion, far short of the original pledge. Huang dismissed any suggestion of bad blood between the companies as “nonsense.”
The Anthropic Relationship
Nvidia announced a $10 billion investment in Anthropic in November. Two months later, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, speaking at Davos, likened the practice of U.S. chip firms selling high‑performance AI processors to approved Chinese customers to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.”
Shortly before Huang’s conference appearance, the Trump administration blacklisted Anthropic, barring federal agencies and military contractors from using its technology after the company refused to permit its models for autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.
Within hours of that announcement, OpenAI struck its own deal with the Pentagon—a move Anthropic called “mendacious.” The fallout helped Anthropic’s Claude climb to the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store, overtaking ChatGPT.
What This Means for Nvidia
Nvidia now holds stakes in two AI companies that are moving in opposite directions—OpenAI pursuing a Pentagon partnership while Anthropic faces government restrictions. Huang’s stated reason for ending future investments—closing of the IPO window—doesn’t fully align with how late‑stage private investing typically works. It appears more likely that Nvidia is exiting a rapidly complicated situation.
References
- Potential bubble in circular AI deals (WSJ)
- MIT Sloan professor’s comment (Financial Times)
- OpenAI’s $30 billion investment (OpenAI)
- Nvidia‑Anthropic $10 billion partnership (Nvidia blog)
- Anthropic blacklisting (TechCrunch)
- Anthropic’s criticism of OpenAI’s Pentagon deal (TechCrunch)
- Claude’s rise in the App Store (TechCrunch)