NVIDIA will acquire a $2 billion equity stake in Marvell Technology Inc. and open its system platform to enable Marvell to integrate custom artificial intelligence chips and networking equipment on the platform.
NVIDIA and Marvell have also agreed to collaborate on silicon photonics technology, which uses light instead of traditional copper wires to transmit data more quickly and efficiently. In recent years, NVIDIA has made several multibillion-dollar investments in companies along the AI supply chain. According to a statement released on Tuesday, the two companies will also work together to explore ways to better utilize telecommunications networks for artificial intelligence computing.
On Tuesday, Marvell's stock price rose by as much as 11%, while NVIDIA's shares increased by up to 3.8%.
Marvell has been seeking to position itself advantageously during the AI spending boom. Although the company has helped cloud computing firms such as Amazon design custom chips for AI processing, these products have not gained as much traction as NVIDIA's processors.
NVIDIA's investment in and partnership with Marvell builds on the company's efforts announced last year to open its ecosystem to certain competitors. In May of last year, CEO Jensen Huang stated that the company would provide access to its AI servers, allowing several partners, including Marvell, to deploy custom chips for customers in data centers.
At the same time, silicon photonics technology is expected to expand AI infrastructure by accelerating data transfer with lower energy consumption, helping to alleviate the high power demands associated with AI tools such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude.
When asked about the unusual move of one chipmaker taking a stake in another, Marvell CEO Matt Murphy told CNBC that he does not view it as a zero-sum game, adding that companies like NVIDIA and Marvell are collectively building and expanding the overall market for their products. Jensen Huang expressed a similar view in the company's statement, saying that collaborating with Marvell means customers can better "leverage NVIDIA's AI infrastructure ecosystem."
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