Invest in Your Own Customers

Nvidia has moved from selling to its customers to funding them. On 22 September 2025 it signed a non-binding letter of intent to invest up to $100B in OpenAI. In February 2026 Reuters reported that it was being replaced by an investment of about $30B in OpenAI’s funding round, and in March, Yahoo Finance quoted Huang: “The opportunity to invest $100 billion in OpenAI is probably not in the cards.” Nvidia’s filings do not name the size of any OpenAI stake. What its August 2026 10-Q does disclose is bigger: in August 2026 Nvidia agreed guarantees, capped at $105B in total, backing an OpenAI affiliate’s 20-year leases at SB Energy’s data-center campus in Ohio, which will host Nvidia infrastructure exclusively.

The web of stakes. Fortune reported about 7% of CoreWeave, $5B for roughly 4% of Intel (18 September 2025), around £500M into UK start-up Nscale, and a £2B pledge for UK start-ups alongside venture firms. Nvidia’s FY2026 10-K reports $17.5B invested in private companies and infrastructure funds, and non-marketable equity securities of $22.3B, up from $3.4B a year earlier. By 26 July 2026 that figure was $47.9B, after $31.0B of net additions in six months. The FY2026 10-K said Nvidia had been asked to offer customers financing (loans, guarantees and payment terms, not equity) and had “not entered into any financing arrangements.” Six months later the 10-Q says it now provides “financial guarantees and other forms of credit support, financing arrangements, and data center leases.”

Two readings. Bernstein’s Stacy Rasgon said the OpenAI action “will clearly fuel ‘circular’ concerns.” CoreWeave’s CEO called the narrative “ridiculous.” Huang, on the Q3 FY2026 call, said of bubble talk: “From our vantage point, we see something very different.”

Doesn’t transfer, and carries live risk at Nvidia. Financing your customers works only with a cash pile most companies will never have, and it blurs whether demand is organic. If the build-out slows, Nvidia is both the supplier and the investor. The open question is demand quality and how clearly it is disclosed, and that holds even if the demand is genuine.