Nvidia has committed over $40 billion to equity investments in AI companies in just the first five months of 2026. The chipmaker's investment spree includes a $30 billion stake in OpenAI, seven multi-billion dollar deals with public companies, and roughly two dozen private startup rounds. Critics call the deals circular — money flowing back and forth between the same companies. Nvidia says it is building a competitive moat.
The Scale of Nvidia's AI Bets
The $40 billion total is dominated by a single deal. Nvidia invested $30 billion in OpenAI as part of the company's $122 billion fundraise at an $852 billion valuation. That single bet accounts for roughly 75 percent of Nvidia's total 2026 investment commitments.
The remaining $10 billion is spread across a diverse portfolio. Nvidia invested up to $3.2 billion in glassmaker Corning, which supplies components for data center infrastructure. It committed up to $2.1 billion to data center operator IREN. And it backed Thinking Machines Lab, Ineffable Intelligence, Legora, and numerous other AI startups across frontier models, legal AI, robotics, and infrastructure.
In 2025, Nvidia participated in 67 venture deals. It is already on pace to exceed that in 2026. The company has shifted from being a chip supplier to an ecosystem investor — funding the companies that buy its products and the companies that build on top of them.
The Circular Money Problem
The most persistent criticism of Nvidia's investment strategy is that the money is circular. Nvidia invests in AI companies. Those companies use the capital to buy Nvidia chips. Nvidia reports higher revenue. Its stock price rises. It uses that wealth to invest in more AI companies. The cycle repeats.
Wedbush Securities analyst Matthew Bryson said the investments fall squarely into the circular investment theme. The concern is that the deals inflate both Nvidia's revenue and the valuations of its portfolio companies without creating genuine new economic value.
The same pattern applies across the AI infrastructure ecosystem. Amazon invested $13 billion in Anthropic. Anthropic committed $100 billion to AWS. Google is investing $40 billion in Anthropic while Anthropic spends billions on Google Cloud. The cash circulates between the same companies in deals structured partly as cloud credits rather than real capital.
Why Nvidia Does It Anyway
The counterargument is strategic. By investing in AI companies early, Nvidia ensures they build on Nvidia hardware rather than alternatives. Every startup that takes Nvidia investment is more likely to use Nvidia chips. Every cloud provider that receives Nvidia capital is more likely to prioritize Nvidia GPUs over competing custom silicon from Google, Amazon, or Intel.
In a market where Google is building TPUs, Amazon has Graviton and Trainium, and ASML controls the lithography machines that everyone depends on, Nvidia's investment strategy is as much about competitive positioning as financial returns. Locking AI companies into the Nvidia ecosystem through equity ties creates switching costs that pure vendor relationships cannot.
The Bigger Picture
Nvidia's $40 billion investment commitment in less than five months reflects the extraordinary scale of capital flowing through the AI industry. The company is simultaneously the most valuable chipmaker in the world and one of the most active AI investors. It sells the hardware. It funds the companies that buy the hardware. And it profits from both sides of every transaction.
Whether that model is a brilliant strategic moat or a house of cards built on circular money will depend on whether the AI companies Nvidia is backing generate genuine revenue and real economic value. If they do, Nvidia's investments look prescient. If they do not, the entire ecosystem is exposed.
For now, Jensen Huang is writing $40 billion in checks. And the AI industry is cashing them.
