Nvidia secures $500bn backing for global AI infrastructure expansion

Nvidia has joined forces with some of Wall Street’s biggest banks and investment firms to raise $500bn (£370bn) for artificial intelligence infrastructure, in a move that could accelerate the construction of data centres and the production of AI chips.

The chipmaker said it had reached agreements with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR. The investors are treating AI hardware and infrastructure – commonly known as “compute” – as an asset class for the first time.

“In AI, compute is revenue”, Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said. “We are bringing the world’s leading long-term capital providers together to independently underwrite AI infrastructure.”

The funding will support projects developed by Nvidia itself, as well as infrastructure being built by its partners.

That is expected to include new data centres capable of housing, operating and cooling vast numbers of computer chips. Those chips process the data and actions required to run artificial intelligence systems.

The financing could also support the construction of factories making the specialist AI chips needed to power those systems, helping increase their availability to customers.

“Compute has become a critical infrastructure asset”, KKR co-chief executives Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall said in a joint statement. “As we’ve scaled our approach to digital infrastructure, we’ve learned that delivery, not ambition, is the hard part.”

Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs) are used by almost every major technology and AI company to run digital services, artificial intelligence platforms and chatbots.

Customers using Nvidia’s chips include Google, Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, SpaceX, Tesla, OpenAI and Anthropic.

Those companies have collectively spent more than $1tn on AI projects and infrastructure over the past three years, with further substantial investment expected. Demand for Nvidia’s chips and services has helped increase the company’s stock market value fivefold in the same period.

In a statement on Monday, Mr Huang described Nvidia’s role as a chipmaker as only the starting point for the company.

“Today, we are helping create a new class of productive, investable infrastructure: AI factories,” he said.

The new arrangement will give companies access to additional funding from the banks and investment firms working with Nvidia, allowing them to finance a larger share of the continuing AI boom.

Jim Zelter, president of Apollo, which manages more than $1tn in assets, said: “Modern compute has emerged as a scarce, mission-critical asset class.”

He added that the sector was “positioned to drive significant long-term economic growth and productivity gains”.

The announcement comes as investment in AI infrastructure expands across the technology industry. BlackRock entered into a separate agreement with Meta last month to provide financing and take a majority ownership stake in a data centre in Texas.

Anthropic has also agreed a deal with Macquarie Asset Management and Singapore investment bank GIC to support its own investment in AI infrastructure.

The size of that agreement was not disclosed. However, Anthropic said it needed further financing because demand for its Claude chatbot had grown to such a level that the “demand requires significant new compute”.