NVIDIA tops $40bn in AI equity bets in 2026, anchored by $30bn OpenAI investment

NVIDIA Tops $40 Billion in AI Equity Bets in 2026

May 10, 2026 - 9:42 am

Image by: Maurizio Pesce

  • $30 billion went to OpenAI; the rest is spread across several companies and private startup rounds.
  • NVIDIA has committed more than $40 billion to AI equity investments in the first four months of 2026, per CNBC.

Investments Overview:

The $10 billion+ remaining investments include:

  • Up to $3.2 billion in Corning, an optical-fibre and ceramics maker supplying AI data centers.
  • Up to $2.1 billion in IREN, a data center operator transitioning from Bitcoin mining towards GPU compute.

These are structured as warrants or commitments timed at NVIDIA’s discretion.

Other notable investments:

  • $2 billion in CoreWeave (now valued at roughly $4.4 billion) for approximately 28% of Nvidia’s listed equity portfolio.
  • $2 billion in Nebius with a five-gigawatt deployment commitment.
  • A new $2.1 billion warrant on IREN.

Strategy and Signaling:

NVIDIA's strategy focuses on:

  • Ensuring compute capacity around its hardware.
  • Upstream and downstream influence over AI value chain.
  • Control over silicon deployment, pricing, and agreements with key players like OpenAI and CoreWeave.