Nvidia deal spree continues; Jensen Huang-led company to invest $2 billion in Marvell as AI race heats up

Jensen Huang-led Nvidia, on Tuesday (local time), announced that it has invested $2 billion in a "strategic partnership" with Marvell Technology, adding that the two chipmakers now plan to partner on silicon photonics technology.

According to a press release, the collaboration between the two chipmakers will connect Marvell to Nvidia's artificial intelligence (AI) factory and AI-RAN ecosystem via Nvidia's NVLink Fusion, giving customers building on Nvidia architectures greater flexibility and choice in designing next-generation systems.

Deal to help customers ‘build scalable, efficient AI infra’

Huang, in a statement, said, "Together with Marvell, we are enabling customers to leverage NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure ecosystem and scale to build specialized AI compute."

Commenting on the development, Matt Murphy, chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Marvell, said, "Our expanded partnership with NVIDIA reflects the growing importance of high-speed connectivity, optical interconnect, and accelerated infrastructure in scaling AI."

He added, "By connecting Marvell’s leadership in high-performance analog, optical DSP, silicon photonics, and custom silicon to NVIDIA’s expanding AI ecosystem through NVLink Fusion, we are enabling customers to build scalable, efficient AI infrastructure.”

Nvidia-Marvell partnership

Marvell has emerged as a key player in the AI race. Its shares jumped this month after the company issued strong guidance and projected faster revenue growth through 2027 amid rising AI demand. The chipmaker's shares surged 11% after Nvidia announced plans to invest $2 billion.

The companies will partner to transform the world’s telecommunication network into AI infrastructure with Nvidia's Aerial AI-RAN for 5G/6G, and advance world-class networking for AI, including advanced optical interconnect solutions and silicon photonics technology.

Nvidia on partnership spree

Amid the increasing demand for AI and a heated race between the businesses, Nvidia has made similar $2 billion bets in other companies in the past few months, CNBC reported. The companies included in the list are Synopsys, CoreWeave, Coherent, and Lumentum. More recently, the Huang-led company invested $2 billion in Nebius Group. On Tuesday, the AI cloud company revealed its plans to establish one of Europe's largest data centres.

SLB expands ties with Nvidia

Last week, Reuters reported that oilfield services firm SLB announced plans to expand its partnership with Nvidia to develop AI infrastructure and models for the energy industry, as companies tried to scale up use of the technology.

As part of the expanded collaboration, SLB will serve as a design partner for modular AI data centres built on Nvidia's technology. The two companies will also work together to develop an “AI Factory for Energy,” a platform designed to help oil and gas operators and power firms use AI to analyse and manage large volumes of operational data.

Nvidia has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI boom on Wall Street in recent years, driven by demand for its graphics processing units (GPUs) that power large language models.