Nvidia sells the chips that power the AI boom. It also bankrolls the companies that buy those chips. The size of that bankroll is starting to raise eyebrows on Wall Street.
The chipmaker has already pledged more than $40 billion in equity bets across the AI supply chain in 2026. The year is not yet half over. The pace is faster than at any point in the company's history.
The Trade That Made Skeptics Stop Asking Questions
Nvidia put $5 billion into Intel earlier this year. That stake is now worth more than $25 billion. Intel stock is up over 200% on the year. Nvidia's vote of confidence helped open the door for more partners.
A return that big in a few months covers a lot of skeptical questions. Nvidia is not slowing down to enjoy it.
Just this week, the company signed two more big deals. It will put up to $2.1 billion into data center operator IREN. It also struck a deal letting it invest up to $3.2 billion in 175-year-old glass maker Corning. Both stocks popped on the news.
CEO Jensen Huang's argument is simple. Nvidia made $97 billion in free cash flow last fiscal year - which is the cash a company keeps after paying its bills. He says the company is using it to deepen its grip on the AI ecosystem rather than sit on it.
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The Bigger Question Wall Street Is Quietly Asking
The pattern goes like this: Nvidia bets on a customer. The customer uses that cash to buy more Nvidia chips. Then Nvidia's revenue grows.
Critics have a name for it - vendor financing. That's when a supplier loans or invests money in customers so they can keep buying. The model worked fine until it didn't during the dot-com bust.
The numbers are big. Nvidia's private-company holdings jumped to $22.25 billion at the end of January. That's up from $3.39 billion a year earlier.
Gains on those private bets and public stakes hit $8.92 billion last fiscal year. The year before, that number was $1.03 billion.
Wedbush analyst Matthew Bryson called the strategy "circular" but said it could create a real "competitive moat" - meaning a defense against rivals - if Nvidia executes.
Mizuho's Jordan Klein liked the deals with chip-supplier companies. But he flagged Nvidia's bets on AI cloud companies as "questionable." His blunt take: it looks like Nvidia is pre-funding the purchase of its own products.
The biggest single bet was the $30 billion Nvidia put into OpenAI in February. That deal was first set to hit $100 billion. It got cut after OpenAI shifted away from building its own data centers. Huang said in March the $30 billion check might be the last one before OpenAI's expected IPO this year.
What To Watch
Nvidia reports first-quarter earnings in less than two weeks. That will give investors a clearer look at how big the equity portfolio has grown. It will also show how much of headline revenue is being supported by the company's own balance sheet.
Creative Strategies analyst Ben Bajarin said the risk is the cycle turning. The market would then start to ask how much of Nvidia's demand is real versus self-funded.
A $5.2 trillion company can absorb almost any single bad bet. A pattern of bad bets is the part nobody can absorb.
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