Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
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Jensen Huang is feeling spendy. In the span of a few weeks, the Nvidia CEO has committed billions to deals and investments — with more potentially right around the corner.The spending spree shows how far Nvidia is expanding beyond chips and raises a bigger question: how much of the AI ecosystem does it want a hand in?Nvidia said in its earnings report on Wednesday that it has $18 billion committed to equity investments for the rest of the fiscal year, with a focus on AI model makers, infrastructure financiers, and other private companies.It held $47.9 billion in private companies as of late July — more than double the $22.3 billion it held at the end of the last fiscal yearMany of these deals aren't outright acquisitions. Luke Lango, chief technology analyst at InvestorPlace, said that licensing technology, hiring talent, and taking minority stakes can help avoid some of the regulatory scrutiny and integration headaches that can accompany an acquisition.Nvidia is spreading its betsNvidia's expansion comes as some of its biggest customers are moving onto its turf. As Amazon, Google, and Microsoft build their own chips, Nvidia is pushing further into the infrastructure, software, and models that surround them.In August, Nvidia announced it had invested $1.5 billion in SB Energy and taken a stake in Cloverleaf Infrastructure — two companies helping to solve the land and power crunch posed by data centers.On the financing front, it teamed up with Wall Street firms to raise more than $500 billion in outside funding for AI infrastructure.It also struck a multibillion-dollar deal with coding startup Poolside and is reportedly eyeing investments or deals with the AI search startup Perplexity and Korean inference chip startup Rebellions.
