Nvidia has signed memorandums of understanding with six Wall Street financial institutions — Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR — to raise more than $500bn for artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to the company. Nvidia's chief executive, Jensen Huang, said the company has the option to backstop up to $125bn, or 25 percent of the potential deals.
Nvidia signs deals with six financial firms to raise $500bn for AI infrastructure
Nvidia has signed memorandums of understanding with six Wall Street financial institutions — Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR — to raise more than $500bn for artificial intelligence infrastructure, according to the company. Nvidia's chief executive, Jensen Huang, said the company has the option to backstop up to $125bn, or 25 percent of the potential deals.
The arrangements are intended to create financing platforms that would allow third-party investors to treat AI computing capacity as an asset class, Nvidia said. The company added that the platforms would 'create dedicated pools of capital at significant scale at attractive rates' for its customers.
Nvidia, which has a market valuation of $5.3tn, counts Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta among its customers.
Huang said in a statement that the platforms 'will help customers access scarce compute at scale and build the AI factories that will power every industry and country in the age of AI.' KKR co-chief executives Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall said in a joint statement that 'compute has become a critical infrastructure asset.'
The announcements come as big technology companies have signalled that spending on AI would not slow, with combined outlays reportedly set to surpass $730bn this year.
Nvidia did not disclose the financial terms, individual investment commitments by each firm, or a timetable for deploying the planned $500bn.
- The financial terms of the memorandums of understanding are not disclosed
- Individual capital commitments from each of the six firms are not specified
- No timetable for deploying the $500bn is provided
- It is not established whether the memorandums of understanding have been converted into binding agreements
- The source does not explain how the $125bn backstop option would be exercised or under what conditions
- The basis for the $730bn combined tech spending figure is not identified
- No independent verification of the deal terms or valuations is cited
Read the original at The Guardian