Nvidia's OpenAI investment may not be as big as once hoped, adding to a jittery tech trade

MW Nvidia's OpenAI investment may not be as big as once hoped, adding to a jittery tech trade

By Emily Bary

Jensen Huang says Nvidia still plans to invest in OpenAI but dials back expectations around the size of the commitment

Nvidia in September announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, though the company subsequently noted that it hadn't struck "definitive agreements" around that money.

Investors in artificial-intelligence stocks may be getting a lesson about the difference between press-release hype and reality.

The Wall Street Journal reported late on Friday that Nvidia's (NVDA) plan to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI had "stalled" due to internal doubts - partly related to the ChatGPT creator's future competitive positioning. Nvidia instead could conduct a different sort of OpenAI investment, by participating in the company's next large funding round, the story said.

The report loomed over Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's weekend visit to Taiwan, where he was asked about the company's OpenAI relationship and their future financial relationship. Huang said he still plans to invest "a great deal of money" in OpenAI, but, when pressed on whether the investment could be greater than $100 billion, replied: "No, no, nothing like that," according to the Journal.

See also: These overlooked stocks are a backdoor way to play the AI chip boom

A Reuters story on the exchange with reporters in Taiwan said that Huang deemed it "nonsense" to suggest he was unhappy with OpenAI.

An Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment. OpenAI didn't immediately respond to MarketWatch's request for comment.

In September, Nvidia announced, to some fanfare, its intention to make an OpenAI investment, and shares rose 4% that day. But critics took issue with the arrangement and the optics of Nvidia making such a large investment in one of its customers.

See also: Why Nvidia's $100 billion investment in OpenAI signals a major transformation (from September 2025)

Nvidia's next earnings report in November made it clear the $100 billion figure wasn't exactly an ironclad commitment. "There is no assurancethat we will enter into definitive agreements with respect to the OpenAI opportunity or other potential investments, or that any investment will be completed on expected terms, if at all," the company disclosed in its quarterly filing.

Though Huang said this weekend that Nvidia still intends to invest in OpenAI and is a believer in the company's work, a walking back of the $100 billion figure may stoke further jitters about the health of the AI trade. The big semiconductor and cloud-computing giants are all linked to OpenAI's ambitions, and if the ChatGPT maker falters, that could ripple across the AI ecosystem.

While Nvidia shares have gained about 2% so far this year, edging out the S&P 500 SPX over that span, investors seem more focused on whether AI will deliver a meaningful and broad-based financial payoff, as evidenced by the sharply negative reaction to Microsoft's $(MSFT)$ earnings last week.

Nasdaq-100 futures (NQ00) were off more than 1% on Sunday.

OpenAI is now reportedly in the midst of locking down a funding round of up to $100 billion, which could value the company at roughly $830 billion, according to Reuters.

See also: Eager for an OpenAI or Anthropic IPO? Then Trump's Fed pick is good news.

-Emily Bary

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February 01, 2026 22:24 ET (03:24 GMT)

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