Nvidia plans to invest $100 billion into OpenAI. That’s uh, a lot of money.

Sam Altman motions toward his head while speaking with a microphone — Sam Altman

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Nvidia is investing huge amounts into OpenAI to help build more data centers.
They plan to build “at least 10 gigawatts” worth of data centers using Nvidia’s chips to give OpenAI compute.
But how much, really, is $100 billion?

Nvidia just announced plans to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI to help build AI data centers. The deal between the two companies will create 10 gigawatts of AI data centers using Nvidia’s chips (which OpenAI needs for the computer to power its AI).

This deal sounds pretty sweet to Wall Street — Nvidia’s stock jumped 4% after it was announced. But it’s also a lot of money — and gigawatts. For comparison, the 10 gigawatts Nvidia plans to invest are as much as it expects to ship all year.

But it’s also just a lot of money — $100 billion is no pocket change, even for these huge companies. The amount of money being talked about for AI investment is, to use a technical financial term, banoodles.

In February 2024, Sam Altman was reportedly trying to raise up to $7 trillion in the United Arab Emirates to the tune of up to $7 trillion to be spent on infrastructure.

Here’s how big $100 billion is:

333 salaries for Meta AI researchers (allegedly up to $300 million each, lol)
100 Instagrams in 2013 (when Facebook bought it for $1 billion).
20,000 Koenigsegg Regera ultracars (the kind Sam Altman owns, for $5 million each. Too bad only 85 of these cars were made).
Bill Gates’ net worth (about $106 billion)
50 Taylor Swift Eras tours ($2 billion total haul)
Maine’s entire gross domestic product for 2024 (about $98 billion)
Nike’s market cap (about $105 billion)
2 Harvard endowments ($53.6 billion)