Nvidia and OpenAI forge $100 billion alliance to deliver 10 gigawatts of Nvidia hardware for AI datacenters
All of a sudden, the 1.21 gigawatts in Back To The Future aren't impressive anymore.
Tech industry giants OpenAI and Nvidia have announced a pivotal partnership, which will deploy 10 gigawatts worth of AI datacenters and $100 billion in investments.
OpenAI has committed to creating multiple datacenters with Nvidia as its "preferred strategic compute and networking partner," with the first one expected to deploy in the second half of 2026. The partnership will see OpenAI construct fervently until the total combined power budget of those datacenters reaches "at least" 10 gigawatts. For its part, Nvidia dove into its war chest to secure $100 billion, returning the favor by progressively investing in OpenAI, presumably via share purchases.
Additionally, and perhaps most interestingly, both companies commit to "co-optimize" their respective roadmaps. It's not hard to imagine that the hands of Nvidia's AI clients already guide the chipmaker's designs, but this statement could imply that OpenAI will have a bigger say in Nvidia's plans than before.
The companies also point out that the new collaboration dovetails nicely with the existing agreements with the likes of Microsoft, Oracle, and SoftBank. OpenAI is already the exclusive AI partner for Microsoft, which promised in January to invest $80 billion in the technology.
Meanwhile, OpenAI's Sam Altman remarks that "compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future", a statement that would seem more like hyperbole a mere two or three years ago.
OpenAI's next datacenters will use Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform (and presumably Rubin Ultra), powerful accelerators packing 76 TB of HBM4 memory that should be capable of performing FP4 inference at 3.6 exaflops and FP8 training at 1.2 exaflops. The fact that the "exa" prefix is becoming commonplace is exciting and scary in equal measures.
The Rubin GPU and Vera CPUs taped out in late August and are now being manufactured in TSMC facilities. Meanwhile, Rubin Ultra is expected to deliver 15 exaflops of FP4 operations for inference, and 5 exaflops of FP4 for training. These figures come by way of 365 TB of HBM4e memory and 14 GB300 GPUs.
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To put the 10-gigawatt figure into perspective, a contemporary U.S. nuclear power plant reactor is suitable for around 1 gigawatt, meaning these new datacenters will gobble up 10 reactors' worth of juice to do their thing. That's a concept that's hard to wrap one's head around. While the technological advancement is definitely impressive, it also raises hard questions about its environmental costs.
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Bruno Ferreira is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware. He has decades of experience with PC hardware and assorted sundries, alongside a career as a developer. He's obsessed with detail and has a tendency to ramble on the topics he loves. When not doing that, he's usually playing games, or at live music shows and festivals.
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hotaru251 at what point does the power grid become so strained its unreliable & those causing it forced to fund its expansion?Reply -
DougMcC Reply
Around a hundred years ago? This is not a new problem, nor one that requires new solutions.hotaru251 said:at what point does the power grid become so strained its unreliable & those causing it forced to fund its expansion? -
thestryker A lot of the problems that the US has with the power grid are simply linked to capitalism, a lack of regulation and regulations that haven't been updated. Several states have law/regulation for power companies which doesn't really allow them to say charge just a datacenter for electrical expansion that may be required. Instead it gets dispersed across all electrical customers which has been one of the drivers of increasing bills.Reply
Unfortunately with how things are looking it's probably going to be up to states to handle it. Hopefully enough will make moves that the companies adding new huge strain will be the ones paying for it. -
jwnm Newer reactors can use spent fuel from older reactors and they break down spent fuel into a much smaller footprint so creating these is not a problem but part of that 100 billion allocated needs to go towards creating those reactors. In the end it SHOULD make the every day consumers bill less not more. The purchase of AI products in the future should contain those costs. Common sense and right are no longer concepts in a indoctrinated society.Reply -
jp7189 Reply
Power companies are constantly modeling such things and generally make the data publically available as it helps to loosen purse strings. E.g. in my area they predict rolling blackouts starting in 2027 if major investments aren't made asap.hotaru251 said:at what point does the power grid become so strained its unreliable & those causing it forced to fund its expansion? -
blppt Reply
I mean, both Texas and California already have problems with their grids during summer months.hotaru251 said:at what point does the power grid become so strained its unreliable & those causing it forced to fund its expansion?
What's especially hilarious about this is that people may not be able to afford electricity because the power-sucking AI Centers have forced utilities to raise prices to astronomical levels. -
ingtar33 The incestuous silicon valley ouroboros continues... get this.Reply
OpenAI pledged 300billion to build out a massive datacenter with Oracle, this drove oracle's stock prices through the roof
problem is OpenAI doesn't have 300billion nor the means to make it
Oracle then pledged to buy 200billion in Nvidia gpus for their AI datacenter they're building for OpenAI, driving NVidia stock through the roof.
NVidia then pledges 100billion to Open AI to help them get their database project off the ground, driving OpenAI valuation from 40billion to 500billion with no money changing hands, it's a miracle!
It's a giant ouroboros. No money is actually changing hand but the value for all 3 goes up! -
hotaru251 Reply
Texas is by design their own fault as majority of the people in TX use the state grid not the national grid.blppt said:I mean, both Texas and California already have problems with their grids during summer months.