OpenAI's landmark $100 billion partnership with chip giant Nvidia has stalled, casting a shadow over the artificial intelligence firm's aggressive expansion and its planned initial public offering (IPO) in late 2026. According to reports, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has privately criticized OpenAI's business discipline and expressed concerns about its competitive position against rivals like Google's Gemini and Anthropic's Claude.
The deal, originally announced in September 2024, would have seen Nvidia invest up to $100 billion to provide OpenAI with at least 10 gigawatts of computing power. However, talks have not progressed beyond early stages. Nvidia's CFO, Colette Kress, confirmed in December that a final agreement had not been completed. The companies are now reportedly negotiating a smaller, direct equity investment from Nvidia worth tens of billions of dollars into OpenAI's current funding round.
This development comes as OpenAI intensifies its preparations for a public listing. The company is targeting an IPO in the fourth quarter of 2026 and has been bolstering its finance team with key hires, including Ajmere Dale as chief accounting officer and Cynthia Gaylor to lead investor relations. Despite CEO Sam Altman's personal reservations about the "really annoying" IPO process, the company is moving forward, with leadership responsibilities potentially shifting more to Fidji Simo, CEO of Applications.
OpenAI faces fierce competition from Anthropic, which is also racing to go public by the end of 2026. Founded by former OpenAI leaders, Anthropic has hired its own finance executives, like Andrew Zloto, and is projected to reach profitability by 2028, two years ahead of OpenAI's target. This rivalry is heating up the race to become the first major pure-play AI company to list on public markets.
Investor scrutiny has increased following revelations that OpenAI has amassed an astonishing $1.4 trillion in computing commitments across multiple deals with chip and cloud providers—a figure over 100 times its revenue from the previous year. While executives argue the commitments are spread over many years and contain overlaps, the scale has sparked investor anxiety about the company's financial sustainability as it scales.
Despite the stalled Nvidia deal, OpenAI continues to attract significant investor interest. The company is seeking to raise a total of $100 billion at a valuation of approximately $830 billion. Amazon is reportedly in talks to invest up to $50 billion, and SoftBank is also considering a major investment. Nvidia, which has also committed up to $10 billion to rival Anthropic, remains a critical partner, with a spokesperson stating the chipmaker looks forward to continuing its decade-long collaboration with OpenAI.
