Nvidia Invests $30 Billion in OpenAI — This Time Without the Controversy

After a $100 billion deal dissolved in embarrassment, Nvidia is trying again with OpenAI — and this time, the structure is dramatically simpler. A $30 billion equity investment, free of chip purchase commitments, is reportedly in the works as part of OpenAI’s landmark next funding round.
The round is expected to raise around $100 billion in total, valuing OpenAI at an extraordinary $730 billion. That figure is almost double the valuation recently achieved by Anthropic, OpenAI’s closest rival, and places the ChatGPT maker just behind SpaceX in the private company rankings. Amazon, SoftBank, and Microsoft are among the other expected participants in the round.
The contrast with the previous deal could not be more striking. Last September’s $100 billion announcement was celebrated as a landmark AI investment but quickly became a target for criticism. Analysts pointed out that if Nvidia was simply giving OpenAI money to buy Nvidia chips, the “investment” was largely illusory — a way to generate headlines and goose stock prices without creating genuine external value. When it emerged that the deal was never formally binding, the arrangement unraveled quietly but unmistakably.
This time, Nvidia is making a genuine financial bet. It will own equity in one of the most talked-about companies on earth, with no requirement for OpenAI to spend that money on Nvidia products. The arrangement aligns incentives more honestly and gives Nvidia a real stake in OpenAI’s long-term success.
Whether that success will materialize is another question. OpenAI’s share of the AI assistant market has fallen sharply, Anthropic is outcompeting it in enterprise software, and its cash reserves continue to dwindle. Advertising experiments have attracted mockery from competitors, and key backers are still hedging their public statements about the upcoming round. OpenAI at $730 billion is a bold bet — and Nvidia is making it.