Nvidia CEO pushes again towards report that his firm’s $100B OpenAI funding has stalled

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated Saturday {that a} latest report of friction between his firm and OpenAI was “nonsense.”

Huang’s feedback got here after The Wall Road Journal printed a narrative late Friday claiming that Nvidia was trying to reduce its funding in OpenAI. The 2 firms introduced a plan in September through which Nvidia would make investments as much as $100 billion in OpenAI and likewise construct 10 gigawatts of computing infrastructure for the AI firm.

Nonetheless, the WSJ stated Huang has begun emphasizing that the deal is nonbinding, and that he’s additionally privately criticized OpenAI’s enterprise technique and expressed issues about opponents like Anthropic and Google.

The WSJ additionally reported that the 2 firms are rethinking their relationship — although that doesn’t imply chopping issues off totally, with latest discussions reportedly specializing in an fairness funding of a mere tens of billions of {dollars} from Nvidia.

An OpenAI spokesperson informed the WSJ that the businesses are “actively working by means of the small print of our partnership,” including that Nvidia “has underpinned our breakthroughs from the beginning, powers our methods at this time, and can stay central as we scale what comes subsequent.”

Based on Bloomberg, reporters requested Huang in regards to the report throughout a go to to Taipei. In response, he insisted that Nvidia will “undoubtedly take part” in OpenAI’s newest funding spherical “as a result of it’s such a great funding,” in keeping with Bloomberg. 

“We are going to make investments a substantial amount of cash,” Huang stated. “I imagine in OpenAI. The work that they do is unbelievable. They’re some of the consequential firms of our time.”

He apparently declined to specify how a lot Nvidia can be investing, as an alternative saying, “Let [OpenAI CEO Sam Altman] announce how a lot he’s going to boost — it’s for him to determine.”

The WSJ reported in December that OpenAI is trying to elevate a $100 billion funding spherical, whereas The New York Occasions stated this week that Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, and SoftBank are all discussing potential investments.