Nvidia accelerates investments amid industry valuation concerns

Nvidia is pushing forward with a constellation of financing deals, partnerships, and equity stakes that could collectively exceed $750 billion in total value. A growing chorus of skeptics argues that Nvidia’s financial maneuvering may be manufacturing its own demand. The deal machine Here’s what Nvidia has been assembling. A massive initiative exceeding $500 billion tied to the parent company of South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix, aimed at ramping up AI chip production. Then there’s OpenAI. Nvidia is providing guarantees potentially worth up to $250 billion to help Sam Altman’s company lease computing resources from a new US data center project. On top of that, Nvidia is facilitating nearly $350 billion in financing for OpenAI’s purchase of Nvidia chips. The company has also been picking up equity stakes along the way, acquiring positions in both OpenAI and Marvell Technology to deepen its grip on the AI ecosystem. The circular financing problem Critics have a term for what’s happening here: circular financing. The concern is straightforward. When a chip supplier funds its own customers’ purchases, the resulting revenue growth isn’t purely organic. Separating genuine market appetite f...