‘Grateful to Jensen for…’: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s message for Nvidia’s Jensen Huang after $100 billion deal

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has publicly thanked Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang a day after the two companies announced a significant partnership. The deal will see Nvidia invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI and supply it with advanced data centre chips. This collaboration brings together two of the most influential companies in the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, with the goal of building next-generation AI infrastructure.“Grateful to Jensen for the almost-decade of partnership!” said Sam Altman on X (formerly Twitter) while sharing a post by Nvidia announcing the “landmark partnership”. OpenAI will build new gigascale AI factories using millions of NVIDIA GPUs.“This partnership will supply 10 gigawatts of GPUs to fuel OpenAI's data center growth,” Nvidia said.“Everything starts with compute. Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future, and we will utilize what we're building with Nvidia to both create new AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses with them at scale,” Altman stated previously.The partnership solidifies Nvidia’s position as a key supplier in the AI space and provides OpenAI with the crucial computing power and funding it needs to scale its operations and develop more advanced AI models. In a joint statement, the companies noted that the investment will be released in multiple stages as OpenAI deploys new data centre capacity.This partnership provides Nvidia with a financial stake in a key customer and reinforces its position as the top supplier of AI chips. For OpenAI, it guarantees both the funding and the crucial hardware needed to maintain its competitive advantage.The companies have signed a letter of intent to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems for OpenAI, with a full agreement expected in the coming weeks. The first gigawatt of computing power is anticipated to be deployed on Nvidia’s upcoming Vera Rubin platform in the second half of 2026. Despite the new deal, OpenAI's plans to develop its own custom AI chips with partners like Broadcom and TSMC remain in place.