Nvidia’s dizzying week of dealmaking
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Even for professional observers, it was hard to keep track of Nvidia’s (NVDA) flurry of announcements at its tech conference this week in Washington, D.C.
In the weeks leading up to Nvidia’s event, OpenAI (OPAI.PVT) took the cake as the AI dealmaking champ, unveiling deals with multiple partners and triggering a stock bump for everyone involved. But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, not to be outdone, unleashed his own torrent of market-moving news at the company’s GTC event.
And amid a week already filled with a Fed meeting and blockbuster earnings from Big Tech, heads were left spinning by the deal offensive. Doubtless, that was the point.
Nvidia revealed it is working with the US Department of Energy to build seven new supercomputers, including one that will use 10,000 Blackwell GPUs.
Nvidia is partnering with Uber (UBER) to build a fleet of self-driving cars, targeting about 100,000 autonomous vehicles, with mass production starting in 2027.
Nvidia is also partnering with Stellantis (STLA) and Foxconn to explore a robotaxi joint venture.
Nvidia has yet more car collaborations with Lucid and Mercedes-Benz to equip vehicles capable of Level 4 self-driving.
Major deals with the US government and the auto industry would, by themselves, generate investor interest and force analysts’ heads to turn. But wait, there’s more.
Nvidia also said it is working with Nokia (NOK) to help develop next-generation 6G cellular technology. Shares of the telecommunications company surged more than 22% after news of the deal broke, which also gives Nvidia a roughly 3% stake in Nokia.
There’s still more. And why not spread the technological love to other sectors? AI is for everyone.
Drugmaker Eli Lilly (LLY) is building an AI supercomputer running on more than 1,000 Blackwell Ultra GPUs. The partnership will help reduce drug discovery times and “enable breakthroughs in genomics, personalized medicine, and molecular design at industrial scale,” Nvidia said.
If you think that seems like a lot of deals, yes, it’s a lot of deals.
Nvidia’s live blog of the event resembled a media organization’s minute-by-minute news coverage, sustaining its own buzz. The flood-the-zone theatrics even inspired scammers to riff off the attention. Instead of a jewelry heist at the Louvre museum, a swindler generated an AI-generated Huang deepfake peddling a cryptocurrency through a YouTube livestream. At one point, more users were tuning in to the fake stream than to Nvidia’s official broadcast.
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