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The $1 Trillion Tangled Web Of AI Deals Mapped Out

CNBC4:50

Transcription

The pace and scale of artificial intelligence deals lately has been staggering. OpenAI and AMD announcing a five year AI data center deal. OpenAI has signed a $300 billion deal with Oracle for cloud computing power. Nvidia saying it's going to invest $100 billion in OpenAI. It's sparking a global tech rally. Meta is paying nearly $15 billion for a scale AI stake.

We've created a brand new industry called AI infrastructure. Many predict that the AI boom will dramatically change how people live and work. At the center of this technical revolution are a handful of companies which are increasingly turning to each other to finance and build out the infrastructure needed for this innovation. Hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars are being deployed into all of this. And the reality is, it's too much money for any of these entities, whether it's the GPU makers or the AI companies itself, or the data centers or anyone else to do on their own. So they all have to find different ways to kind of come together to do it.

At the center of this web of AI deals are OpenAI, the maker of the widely popular AI chatbot ChatGPT, and Nvidia, a maker of GPUs used to power AI. Just this year, OpenAI alone has made around $1 trillion worth of AI deals. Let's take a closer look at some of these.

In September, OpenAI confirmed that it would pay Oracle $300 billion for computer infrastructure over the course of five years. This deal is part of a $500 billion data center build out project called Stargate, to which Japan's SoftBank Group is also contributing. OpenAI has also inked a $22 billion deal with CoreWeave for use of its data centers, which are packed with Nvidia GPUs. OpenAI has another cloud deal with Google for an undisclosed amount. The company is also partnering with Broadcom to develop and deploy racks of open AI design chips. That deal amount is undisclosed.

Part of the reason OpenAI is able to go on the shopping spree is because of a $100 billion infusion from Nvidia, though a large portion of this investment will likely be used for leasing Nvidia's GPUs. Microsoft has also invested about $14 billion in OpenAI since 2019. Recently, OpenAI has also announced a deal with AMD, where OpenAI agreed to purchase AMD chips in return for a stake in the chipmaker. They're going to get to take up to a 10% stake in the company over time. So that's a pretty substantial equity investment for open AI.

Nvidia has made a similar amount of intertwining deals. In addition to being a stakeholder in CoreWeave, Nvidia has agreed to pay Core Weave up to $6.3 billion for any of core weaves unsold cloud computing capacity through 2032. Core weave gets most of its GPUs that it then rents out to customers from Nvidia. Meanwhile, Oracle has purchased about $40 billion worth of Nvidia chips to build a data center for open AI, which is part of the Stargate project. Softbank has a $3 billion stake in Nvidia.

Other large tech players are also in the mix. In June, meta invested $14 billion into data labeling company scale AI. Meta has also paid $10 billion to Google for use of Google's cloud servers, and $14 billion to CoreWeave for their AI cloud infrastructure. These are just some of the interconnected investments that have dramatically lifted the valuations of many of the companies involved, and sent U.S. stock indexes to new heights.

But some experts are worried that this web of deals is not without its risks. A lot of analysts are beginning to express concerns that OpenAI could become a single point of failure within this AI ecosystem, especially from an infrastructure standpoint. The scale of the deals is undeniable, and it's going to be a question on if they can deliver what they have promised. It's kind of this circular flow of money that some analysts think is a little unnerving and reminiscent of, you know, the .com bubble where we saw a vendor financing really come to a head.

A recent report found that AI companies will need $2 trillion of annual revenue to fund the infrastructure needed to meet projected demand for AI by 2030. This is an $800 billion shortfall, but AI leaders are pushing back against concerns, saying that this is simply what it takes to make AI a reality. The largest tech companies in the world are purchasing this infrastructure because they have demand. There's nothing circular about that. It's a fundamental infrastructure build out that's taking place. And when you have such a massive scale investment in infrastructure, it is not unusual to see partnerships as people try to serve infrastructure to the consumers. It happens in other markets. It's happening in this market.