Nvidia is expanding its strategic partnerships and infrastructure commitments across the AI supply chain, with agreements involving Corning and data center operator IREN adding to its financial ties with suppliers and computing customers.
The investments have drawn scrutiny over their relationship with demand for Nvidia hardware. Matthew Bryson, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said in a note that the company’s investments and infrastructure buildouts fit “squarely into the circular investment theme.” He also said the strategy could strengthen Nvidia’s competitive position if the company executes it successfully.
IREN and Corning agreements
Nvidia and IREN said they intend to support deployment of up to 5 gigawatts of Nvidia DSX-aligned AI infrastructure across IREN’s global data center pipeline over time.
IREN granted Nvidia a five-year right to buy up to 30 million ordinary shares at $70 each, representing a potential investment of $2.1 billion. The right is subject to conditions, including regulatory requirements.
Corning’s May securities filing disclosed that Nvidia purchased warrants for $500 million. Full exercise would require approximately $2.7 billion in additional payments, bringing the potential total outlay to about $3.2 billion.
Under the manufacturing partnership, Corning said it plans to build three facilities in North Carolina and Texas, increase its U.S. optical connectivity manufacturing capacity tenfold and expand U.S. fiber production capacity by more than 50%. The additional capacity is intended to supply optical connections for data centers deploying Nvidia computing systems.
Investments in suppliers and computing customers
On March 2, Nvidia announced $2 billion investments in each of Lumentum and Coherent. Their separate, nonexclusive agreements also include multibillion-dollar purchase commitments and future capacity access rights. The companies said the investments would support research, development and manufacturing expansion in optical technologies.
Later in March, Nvidia said it had invested $2 billion in Marvell Technology as part of a partnership that includes work on silicon photonics.
Nvidia’s financial relationships also extend to cloud operators that deploy its systems. In January, Nvidia said it had invested $2 billion in CoreWeave, alongside plans to build data centers using Nvidia technology. Nebius said Nvidia would invest $2 billion in the company as part of a partnership covering infrastructure deployment, fleet management, inference and data center design.
OpenAI funding and the earlier proposal
In February, OpenAI announced a $110 billion funding round that included $30 billion from Nvidia. OpenAI also announced an expansion of its computing collaboration with the chipmaker.
That funding announcement followed a letter of intent unveiled in September 2025. Under the earlier proposal, Nvidia intended to invest up to $100 billion progressively as OpenAI deployed at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems. The companies said at the time that details remained to be finalized.
In March, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said investing $100 billion in OpenAI was probably “not in the cards.”
Huang has described Nvidia’s investments as support for a broad range of AI developers. During an April podcast appearance, he said the company tries to invest across foundation model companies: “We don’t pick winners. We need to support everyone.”
Analysts examine customer financing
Jordan Klein, a chip analyst at Mizuho, supported Nvidia’s investments in component makers as a way to accelerate development of scarce technology. He questioned investments in specialized AI cloud providers, saying they appeared to finance purchases of Nvidia’s own products. He also acknowledged that those operators have power and data center capacity Nvidia needs.
That concern centers on whether the customer receiving Nvidia capital would sustain its hardware purchases without that support.
Nvidia’s annual filing disclosed $17.5 billion invested in private companies and infrastructure funds during fiscal 2026. The company said those investments included AI model developers that buy its products directly or through cloud service providers.
The filing cautioned that many of those investments are illiquid and that the associated startups might never become profitable. Nvidia also warned that fluctuations in its publicly traded equity holdings could adversely affect its financial results.
