Nvidia Corporation, the world's most valuable company, does not attempt to select which artificial intelligence firms will succeed, its founder and CEO Jensen Huang has stated. Instead, the semiconductor giant invests broadly across the technology sector to support a wide ecosystem.
Huang explained the rationale behind this strategy in an episode of the "Dwarkesh" podcast released on Wednesday. He stated that Nvidia actively invests in numerous foundation model companies, rather than choosing a select few. "We don't pick winners. We need to support everyone," Huang said.
Humility Born from History
Huang cited two primary reasons for this approach. Firstly, he asserted that it is not Nvidia's role to determine which companies will thrive. Secondly, he pointed to the company's own origins as a formative lesson.
"When Nvidia first started, there were 60 3D graphics companies," Huang recalled. "If you would have taken those 60 graphics companies and asked yourself which one was going to make it, Nvidia would be at the top of that list not to make it." He noted that the company's early graphics architecture was not considered promising, leading most observers to "count us out."
"And here we are. So I have enough humility to recognize that. Don't pick winners," Huang concluded.
Broad Investment Portfolio
True to this philosophy, Nvidia has made significant investments across the AI landscape and related industries such as biotechnology, robotics, and autonomous vehicles. The chipmaker holds substantial stakes in public companies including CoreWeave, Intel, Synopsys, and Nokia.
Its strategy is particularly evident in the competitive large language model (LLM) sector. In November, Nvidia committed to investing up to $10 billion in Anthropic to develop its Claude AI. This was followed by a $30 billion investment in OpenAI announced in February.
Focus on Future Public Listings
During a conference appearance in March, Huang indicated that these major investments in private companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are likely to be Nvidia's last in them. "The reason for that is because they're going to go public," he explained.
Beyond these headline deals, Nvidia's investment net is cast wide. The company has also invested in the French AI lab Mistral AI and has provided funding to various startups. These include autonomous driving company Wayve, data labelling firm Scale AI, and Figure AI, which is developing humanoid robots.