OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman declared that “compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future,” and he’s backing that vision with a new $100 billion partnership with Nvidia. This colossal deal is focused on building a 10-gigawatt AI infrastructure, an engine designed not just for scientific research but as the foundational layer for future economic activity driven by artificial intelligence.
Nvidia is funding this ambitious vision with a staged investment of up to $100 billion, for which it will receive equity in OpenAI. This creates a powerful alliance between the provider of the computational tools (Nvidia) and the architect of the future economy’s intelligence layer (OpenAI). The deal ensures that the development of this new economic base will not be constrained by a lack of power.
The partnership aims to construct a series of new data centers that will house 10 gigawatts of Nvidia’s most advanced systems. This will provide OpenAI with the necessary horsepower to serve its massive global user base and, more importantly, to train the vastly more complex AI models required for its long-term goals, including developing “super-intelligence.”
The first payment in this mega-deal, a sum of $10 billion, is tied to a concrete milestone: the deployment of the first gigawatt of power. This initial phase, using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform, is slated for the second half of 2026. This timeline provides a clear path from today’s vision to tomorrow’s reality.
This venture is the logical next step in a decade-long collaboration that, as Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang states, has consistently pushed the boundaries of technology. By building the infrastructure for an AI-powered economy, both companies are positioning themselves as the central architects of the next technological and economic revolution.