Huang told CNBC’s Squawk Box: “It’s imaginative, it’s unique and surprising, considering they were so excited about their next-generation product. I’m surprised that they would give away 10 per cent of the company before they even built it. And so anyhow, it’s clever, I guess.”
OpenAI’s pact with AMD, announced on 6 October, includes a commitment to buy six gigawatts of silicon over several years, covering AMD’s forthcoming MI450 parts. The agreement grants OpenAI warrants over as many as 160 million AMD shares, vesting on deployment volumes and AMD’s share price.
If fully exercised, OpenAI would end up with roughly a 10 per cent slice of AMD. The cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street promptly piled in, sending AMD up 11 per cent on Wednesday and about 43 per cent for the week, while Nvidia rose two per cent after Huang’s remarks.
Nvidia recently said it planned to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI over the next decade, tied to systems requiring 10 gigawatts of power, or between four million and five million GPUs. Huang called that structure “very different” from AMD’s deal because it lets Nvidia sell directly to OpenAI.
Asked how OpenAI would fund Nvidia’s tranche, Huang said: “They don’t have the money yet.” “They’re going to have to raise that money through, first of all, their revenues, which is growing exponentially, equity or debt."
“They gave us the opportunity to invest alongside other investors when the time comes.”
Huang added that after Nvidia’s earlier OpenAI stake, his “only regret is that we didn’t invest more.” He confirmed Nvidia’s participation in xAI’s latest round, reportedly seeking about $20 billion, and said he is “super excited” about the chance to back Elon Musk’s startup.
“Almost everything that Elon is part of, you really want to be part of as well,” he said.
Nvidia has backed CoreWeave, which Huang described as part of a group of “terrific investments” aligned with its ecosystem.
“They’re really special companies, and they’re building, they’re part of our ecosystem building out the AI infrastructure for the world,” Huang said.