Jensen Huang calls OpenAI friction reports nonsense

The most consequential bromance in the AI industry almost looked like it was hitting the rocks this weekend.

Late Friday, The Wall Street Journal dropped a report claiming that Nvidia was planning to walk back its massive investment plans in OpenAI, citing growing friction between the two giants. But by Saturday, Jensen Huang was in Taipei calling the entire story pure "nonsense."

The $100B question

The drama centers on a blockbuster blueprint announced back in September. Under that plan, Nvidia was expected to pump up to $100 billion into OpenAI and construct a jaw-dropping 10 gigawatts of computing infrastructure to power its next-generation models.

According to the WSJ, however, Huang has recently started highlighting that the agreement is entirely nonbinding. The report claimed Huang privately criticized OpenAI's commercial strategy while voicing concerns about surging competition from the likes of Google and Anthropic. Instead of a mega-scale buildout, discussions were reportedly pared down to an equity stake worth a mere "tens of billions."

OpenAI pushed back quickly through a spokesperson, insisting the two sides are actively hammering out the fine print of their alliance. The company added that Nvidia has powered its breakthroughs from day one and will remain indispensable as it scales up.

Jensen smooths it over

Caught by reporters in Taipei, Huang went straight into damage control mode without officially signing any blank checks.

He insisted that Nvidia will "definitely participate" in OpenAI's latest funding round simply because "it's such a good investment." Huang heaped praise on the startup, saying Nvidia would invest "a great deal of money" because OpenAI is easily "one of the most consequential companies of our time."

Yet, when pressed for an exact dollar amount, Huang deflected. He declined to give a specific number, telling reporters to let Sam Altman decide and announce his own fundraising figures.

The scramble for cash around OpenAI is getting crowded. While the WSJ reported in December that Altman is seeking a record-shattering $100 billion round, The New York Times reported this week that Amazon, Microsoft, and SoftBank are also in talks to join Nvidia around the table.

Why it matters

Where there's smoke, there's usually a thermal anomaly. Huang's forceful rebuttal calms immediate panic, but the underlying tension reveals how complicated the chips-for-equity barter has become.

For anyone waiting on cheaper compute and next-gen frontier models, the stakes are real. OpenAI requires monstrous capital infusions just to keep GPUs humming; any delay in turning power plant commitments into actual server racks will choke its deployment speed.

Across the industry, the dynamics are shifting. Nvidia cannot afford to alienate its biggest customer, but it also cannot blindly subsidize a client whose business model faces fierce price pressure from Google's in-house silicon and Anthropic's enterprise gains.

In our view, Huang played this masterfully. He offered maximum verbal reassurance to satisfy Wall Street, while quietly refusing to lock down the astronomical $100 billion sticker price. It looks like the honeymoon is over, and hard-nosed bargaining over actual compute economics has officially begun.