NVIDIA teams up with Wall Street giants in $500bn push to fund AI boom

Chipmaker joins forces with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to finance huge new AI computing centres

NVIDIA has teamed up with six of the world’s biggest financial groups in a push to raise more than US$500bn for the global artificial intelligence boom.

Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR have agreed to work with the chip giant on new financing schemes that could provide NVIDIA customers with the enormous sums needed to build AI computing infrastructure.

The money would come from outside investors rather than NVIDIA itself and would be raised over time, with the partnerships still subject to final agreements.

The plan could make it easier for companies to finance the costly data centres, chips and other infrastructure needed to develop and run increasingly powerful AI systems.

It could also boost NVIDIA’s own business by helping customers secure the money needed to buy and use its technology.

The company wants AI computing capacity to be treated as an infrastructure investment in its own right, attracting the kind of long-term capital already poured into energy, transport and other major projects.

NVIDIA calls the huge computing facilities “AI factories”, while Goldman Sachs believes the initiative could help create a new market for credit backed by NVIDIA computing power.

Jensen Huang, founder and chief executive of NVIDIA, said: “NVIDIA has reached an important milestone. We began by building chips; today, we are helping create a new class of productive, investable infrastructure: AI factories.

“In AI, compute is revenue. NVIDIA compute is uniquely suited for this role. It is broadly adopted, flexible across models and workloads, fungible and transferable across customers and operators, and continuously improved through CUDA software – extending its useful life and improving its economics over time.”

Demand for computing capacity is soaring as governments, businesses, start-ups and AI companies pour money into the technology.

Goldman Sachs chairman and chief executive David Solomon said: “We’re in a pivotal moment of a historic AI investment cycle. NVIDIA’s full-stack platform is in high demand and uniquely positioned at the center of that global buildout.

“Our investment and distribution roles reflect our confidence in NVIDIA’s leadership, and we’re excited for the new opportunity to create a market for credit backed by NVIDIA compute.”

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_{Main image: NVIDIA is teaming up with some of the world’s biggest financial groups in a push to unlock more than $500bn for new AI infrastructure. Credit: NVIDIA}