NVIDIA AI Factory Compute Is Becoming an Investable Asset Class

August 11, 2026 by Jensen Huang

We announced partnerships with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR to establish independent financing platforms designed to mobilize over $500 billion of third-party capital to support the buildout of AI infrastructure over time.

This is a major milestone for NVIDIA and the AI industry. We have moved from an era in which companies bought chips and built data centers project by project to one in which AI factories can be financed as productive infrastructure — with repeatable platforms, long-term institutional capital and a diverse customer base that uses compute to create revenue.

AI has reached an inflection point. It is moving from research into production. AI is creating real value, and the infrastructure behind it is becoming one of the world’s most productive assets. In AI, compute is revenue.

A New Infrastructure Asset

NVIDIA compute is not just a chip. It is a complete AI factory platform including accelerated computing, networking, systems software, AI frameworks and a global developer ecosystem.

NVIDIA DSX AI factories can run the world’s broadest range of AI models, modalities and algorithms — language, vision, speech, biology, physical AI and robotics. One NVIDIA AI factory can serve many customers and many workloads. That makes it flexible and fungible.

It is also built on a globally adopted architecture used across every major cloud, and by systems makers and enterprises around the world. When needs change, the factory can be used by another customer, another cloud or another operator. This broad ecosystem gives NVIDIA compute a deep market of potential users and offtakers, helping protect residual value.

CUDA makes the factory better over time. Every generation of NVIDIA software improves the performance, efficiency and total cost of ownership of already- installed infrastructure. The hardware does not stand still: software innovation allows an AI factory to produce more intelligence at lower cost throughout its life, extending its useful economic value.

NVIDIA A100 is a powerful example. NVIDIA introduced the Ampere-based A100 in 2020, and six years later, it remains in active commercial use for AI training, fine-tuning, inference and high-performance computing. Customers continue to commit capacity for multi-year deployments, extending A100’s economic life toward a decade.

The market is also demonstrating the durability of NVIDIA compute economics. One-year H100 rental pricing rose from about $1.70 per GPU-hour in October 2025 to about $2.35 per GPU-hour in March 2026. Cross-provider on-demand median pricing rose from roughly $2.00 per GPU-hour in October 2025 to $2.70 in June 2026. Blackwell capacity commands a premium, with reported B200 cloud rates spanning approximately $5.30 to $7.05 per GPU-hour.

That is what makes NVIDIA AI factories different. Their value is not fixed at installation: CUDA continuously improves their output; the installed base remains productive well beyond its initial depreciation period; and the same standard architecture serves a deep, growing global market of AI workloads.

These are the characteristics of an investable infrastructure asset: it produces revenue, serves a broad market, improves in performance over time and can be redeployed.

Bringing Capital to AI Factories

The demand for AI infrastructure is extraordinary. But access to capital is uneven. Many great AI companies, enterprises and AI clouds have demand for compute but do not yet have access to financing at the scale or cost required to build quickly.

That is why we are partnering with the world’s leading long-term capital providers.

Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR are also among the world’s leading infrastructure investors, with deep expertise in underwriting long-lived, productive assets. Together, we are creating repeatable financing platforms to help the AI ecosystem build the factories it needs.

The platforms are designed to help qualified AI labs, enterprises and AI clouds access AI-factory infrastructure at scale. The more than $500 billion figure represents aggregate third-party capital that these platforms are designed to mobilize over time — the capital is not NVIDIA revenue, a single fund or a commitment to a single customer.

The financial institutions will independently assess each opportunity — the customer, demand, utilization, cash flow and residual value. NVIDIA provides the AI factory platform. The financial institutions provide long-term capital and financing expertise.

The Important Questions

Is this circular financing?

This initiative is designed to address that concern. We are bringing independent, long-term institutional capital into the AI infrastructure market.

The demand is real: it comes from frontier AI labs, AI-native startups, enterprises, cloud providers and countries building AI services. The capital providers independently underwrite each project — including the customer, demand, utilization, cash flow and residual value. NVIDIA provides the platform; the investors make independent financing decisions.

This is the beginning of an open capital market for AI infrastructure.

Why would NVIDIA support financing?

In some cases, NVIDIA may provide a residual-value support mechanism for up to 25% of an opportunity, assessed carefully on a project-by-project basis. That support is limited, residual-value based and designed to complement — not replace — independent underwriting.

This is substantially lower than other compute-financing arrangements. NVIDIA can provide support because NVIDIA compute is unique: it is fungible, universally adopted, software-upgradable and redeployable across a large ecosystem of customers.

Our role is to help unlock a very large pool of independent capital while maintaining disciplined risk exposure.

Can the market absorb this capacity?

The question is not whether we are building data centers. The question is whether we are building productive AI factories.

An AI factory turns energy and data into valuable intelligence. Its customers are broad: frontier AI labs, AI clouds, enterprises and nations. They are building AI because it has become useful — doing valuable work across every industry.

There is discipline in the model. Each financing partner will independently evaluate demand, utilization, cash flow and residual value. Capacity will be built around real customer economics.

Where is the return on investment?

The return is in the usefulness of AI.

Companies are using AI to write software, discover drugs, design products, serve customers, automate operations and build new services. AI factories make this possible. More compute creates better AI; better AI creates more usage; more usage creates more revenue; and more revenue drives more compute.

This is the virtuous cycle of the AI industrial revolution.

The Infrastructure of Intelligence

Every industrial revolution has been built on infrastructure: electricity, transportation, communications and computing, with every buildout enabled by external financing.

AI factories are the infrastructure of the intelligence era.

With these partnerships, NVIDIA and the world’s leading financial institutions are creating a new way to finance the infrastructure that will power this industrial revolution. We will make AI factories more accessible to the companies, industries and nations building the future.

The age of AI is here. Together, we will build the infrastructure to power it.

Securing the Infrastructure of Intelligence

August 17, 2026 by Jensen Huang

AI factories are the defining infrastructure of the AI era — where compute transforms energy and data into intelligence that powers every business, industry and country.

In the AI economy, compute is revenue.

AI factories require a full stack of critical resources: advanced chips, packaging, memory and networking — as well as land, power and shell.

Just as NVIDIA has used its scale, long-term visibility and supply-chain partnerships to secure critical semiconductor resources, we are now applying that same discipline to secure LPS capacity exclusively for NVIDIA AI factories.

Today, we are partnering with SB Energy to secure LPS capacity at the exceptional PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Portsmouth, Ohio, to host NVIDIA compute. OpenAI will be the tenant.

LPS: The Next Strategic Resource

For the vast majority of NVIDIA customers, securing LPS has long been a part of their infrastructure strategy.

The world’s largest cloud service providers and investment-grade enterprises have balance sheets, infrastructure expertise and long-term contracts to secure LPS independently. They build and operate AI factories using NVIDIA accelerated computing, networking, systems and software.

This model will continue to represent most of NVIDIA’s business.

But frontier AI labs are different.

Frontier AI labs have extraordinary demand for training and inference compute, but many are growing faster than their balance sheets and long-term credit profiles can support. They may have strong customer demand and rapidly growing revenue yet still lack the decades-long infrastructure contracts and investment-grade financing capacity needed to secure the AI factory infrastructure independently.

Their growth is increasingly constrained not by algorithms or customer demand, but by the availability of compute.

For these companies, more compute means more intelligence, more products, more users and more revenue. NVIDIA is helping provide the infrastructure that powers this flywheel.

PORTS-Pike: A Site for Generations of NVIDIA Compute

OpenAI will build and operate a world-class AI factory at PORTS-Pike. The AI factory will use NVIDIA’s full-stack DSX AI factory platform, including GPUs, CPUs, networking and infrastructure software.  

The initial deployment is expected to provide 4.25 gigawatts of AI factory capacity. Each generation of NVIDIA AI factory systems deployed at PORTS-Pike could represent approximately 1.5 million NVIDIA GPUs, or approximately $150 billion to $200 billion in NVIDIA revenue. Over 20 years, the site can support multiple upgrade cycles. 

This is the essential economic point: the LPS commitment secures a long-lived AI factory site, while the NVIDIA compute inside can be upgraded repeatedly. Each new generation can deliver greater production, more intelligence and better economics. 

NVIDIA may also choose to extend the arrangement at PORTS-Pike beyond the initial 4.25 gigawatts to secure the remaining capacity of 3.75 gigawatts. 

OpenAI and NVIDIA Expanding Compute Opportunity

More broadly, OpenAI has committed to substantial deployments of NVIDIA AI infrastructure through 2030. OpenAI’s existing and planned commitments represent approximately 12 gigawatts of NVIDIA compute, with an opportunity to expand to approximately 16 gigawatts if NVIDIA extends the PORTS-Pike arrangement beyond the initial 4.25 gigawatts. 

At these levels, the opportunity represents roughly $600 billion of NVIDIA compute through 2030. 

The Important Questions

What is NVIDIA guaranteeing, and for how long?

NVIDIA is supporting the LPS infrastructure at PORTS-Pike for approximately 4 gigawatts over a 20-year term, securing a site on which NVIDIA compute will be exclusively deployed.  

Our support is limited to defined portions of lease and power payments, along with a specified residual-value commitment — not the full cost of the site or all of the tenant’s obligations.   

The guarantee will become effective in phases as data centers are placed in service between 2028 and 2030. As OpenAI makes lease payments and capacity comes online, NVIDIA’s remaining exposure declines.

Why is NVIDIA guaranteeing PORTS-Pike?

LPS has become a critical constraint on AI factory deployment. NVIDIA is selectively securing exceptional sites where we can host multiple generations of NVIDIA compute and serve durable customer demand. 

The productive life of the site extends through multiple generations of NVIDIA systems, each capable of producing more intelligence and more revenue than the generation before.

Is this circular financing?

No. OpenAI will pay the lease.

NVIDIA uses its scale and long-term visibility to secure PORTS-Pike to host NVIDIA compute. This is the same discipline we apply to supply-chain management: we secure critical inputs when we have visibility into customer demand and when doing so enables long-term productive capacity.

What happens to PORTS-Pike if OpenAI does not use the site in the future?

NVIDIA compute is versatile, fungible and broadly adopted. The capacity can be resold to another qualified tenant across NVIDIA’s global ecosystem of cloud service providers, enterprises, AI labs and startups. 

CUDA makes NVIDIA compute more than hardware. It gives developers and NVIDIA engineers a common platform to continually improve installed systems. 

CUDA makes NVIDIA compute versatile. Versatility makes it fungible. Fungibility drives utilization and durability — making NVIDIA compute a productive asset: rentable and financeable. 

The value of an exceptional site, like PORTS-Pike, is not limited to one customer or one generation of compute. NVIDIA’s standardized platform, broad developer ecosystem and large market of potential users support the ability to redeploy productive capacity over time.

How much LPS will NVIDIA secure?

It will be strategic and disciplined. 

Most NVIDIA customers will continue to secure their own LPS.  The vast majority of LPS hosting NVIDIA compute will continue to be secured directly by CSPs, enterprises, sovereign AI builders and other customers. 

NVIDIA will focus selectively on exceptional sites where visible, durable demand can support multiple generations of NVIDIA compute.

The Infrastructure of Intelligence

PORTS-Pike represents the next step in NVIDIA’s journey. 

We began by building accelerated computing chips. We then expanded to systems, networking, CUDA and full-stack AI factories. Today, we are helping secure the critical infrastructure required to build these factories. 

NVIDIA is the full-stack AI infrastructure platform. 

We are investing in the long-lived foundations of AI factories so our customers can deploy the most productive compute platform in the world, generation after generation. 

By securing the critical resources needed to host NVIDIA compute, we can help the world’s most innovative companies build the AI factories that will power the age of intelligence.