NVIDIA teams with investors on AI infrastructure finance

NVIDIA has partnered with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to create AI compute infrastructure financing platforms. The group said the arrangements are intended to mobilise more than USD $500 billion of third-party capital over time.

Based on memorandums of understanding, the partnerships aim to establish independent financing structures for AI infrastructure tied to NVIDIA systems. The capital pools would support customers seeking access to compute for AI factories, NVIDIA's term for large-scale facilities built around AI processing and software.

The move draws some of the world's biggest investors deeper into the AI infrastructure market as demand for data centres, chips, and related equipment continues to rise. It also signals an effort to treat compute assets as a financeable category in their own right, rather than simply as part of a broader data centre or technology project.

NVIDIA said it would work with the six firms to create dedicated pools of capital for its customers, including frontier AI labs, enterprises, and AI cloud providers across its wider ecosystem.

The company argued that long-duration, usage-linked revenues could make AI compute suitable for institutional capital. It added that the financing structures would broaden access to scarce compute at scale while supporting hardware sales and software adoption.

Jensen Huang, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NVIDIA, outlined the company's view of the shift.

"NVIDIA has reached an important milestone. We began by building chips; today, we are helping create a new class of productive, investable infrastructure: AI factories," said Jensen Huang, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NVIDIA.

"In AI, compute is revenue. NVIDIA compute is uniquely suited for this role. It is broadly adopted, flexible across models and workloads, fungible and transferable across customers and operators, and continuously improved through CUDA software - extending its useful life and improving its economics over time. It is supported by a deep global ecosystem of developers, customers, and offtakers. That is why we are bringing the world's leading long-term capital providers together to independently underwrite AI infrastructure. These financing platforms will help customers access scarce compute at scale and build the AI factories that will power every industry and country in the age of AI," Huang said.

Investor backing

Each financial group framed the agreement as a way to increase exposure to infrastructure underpinning AI deployment. Their comments reflected a common theme: compute has become a strategic asset that can attract long-term capital if revenue streams and operating models are structured predictably.

"Modern compute has emerged as a scarce, mission-critical asset class with compelling investment characteristics that is positioned to drive significant long-term economic growth and productivity gains," said Jim Zelter, President of Apollo.

"The combination of NVIDIA's proprietary technology ecosystem and Apollo's flexible, long-term capital base provides a strong foundation to support the next stage of the AI buildout as part of the broader Global Industrial Renaissance," Zelter said.

BlackRock linked the partnership to its broader infrastructure activity with NVIDIA.

"The AI buildout will require unprecedented investment and a skilled workforce to turn that investment into the infrastructure that will help power future growth," said Larry Fink, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BlackRock.

"This partnership deepens our relationship with NVIDIA, including through the AI Infrastructure Partnership, and brings together NVIDIA's leadership in accelerated computing with BlackRock's ability to connect long-term capital to essential infrastructure. Together, we can help deliver the compute capacity that companies need to grow and create more jobs, supporting the continued growth of the U.S. and global economies, while creating attractive, long-term investment opportunities for our clients," Fink said.

Blackstone also pointed to its existing exposure to the NVIDIA ecosystem.

"NVIDIA has created extraordinary demand for its compute through an intense focus on customer value and versatile technology," said Jon Gray, President and Chief Operating Officer of Blackstone.

"We continue to be enormous investors globally across the NVIDIA ecosystem, and this announcement further underscores our confidence in their platform and the future of AI infrastructure," Gray said.

Brookfield presented the arrangement as part of its AI infrastructure strategy.

"As our strategic partner, NVIDIA is enabling us to scale AI factories. We are excited about further collaboration to build and fund the backbone of AI globally," said Bruce Flatt, Chief Executive Officer of Brookfield.

"With demand for large-scale AI compute growing significantly as adoption scales across industries, compute is fast becoming the essential layer of infrastructure and a core pillar of the Brookfield AI infrastructure strategy," Flatt said.

Goldman Sachs said the partnership could help create a market for credit backed by compute assets.

"We're in a pivotal moment of a historic AI investment cycle. NVIDIA's full-stack platform is in high demand and uniquely positioned at the center of that global buildout," said David Solomon, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs.

"Our investment and distribution roles reflect our confidence in NVIDIA's leadership, and we're excited for the new opportunity to create a market for credit backed by NVIDIA compute," Solomon said.

KKR described delivery of physical and digital infrastructure as a central challenge in the sector.

"Compute has become a critical infrastructure asset. As we've scaled our approach to digital infrastructure, we've learned that delivery, not ambition, is the hard part. That's why we're excited to build on our strategic partnership with NVIDIA, a founding investor in Helix Digital Infrastructure, to bring together NVIDIA's accelerated computing platform with KKR's long-duration capital, infrastructure expertise, and capital markets capabilities to turn growing demand into real capacity at extraordinary scale," said Joe Bae and Scott Nuttall, Co-Chief Executive Officers of KKR.

The agreements remain subject to final documentation, the companies said.