2025 was a breakout year for NVIDIA. The company became the first ever to hit the $5-trillion market cap, cementing its role as the backbone of the global AI infrastructure boom.
This year, NVIDIA expanded far beyond chips, backing more than 50 startups and major tech players with multi-billion-dollar commitments. Its investments span AI research, cloud infrastructure, autonomous systems, scientific computing, and even fusion energy.
Here’s a breakdown of where NVIDIA’s investment interests lie and which companies it aggressively backed this year.
OpenAI
OpenAI has been one of the headline partners for NVIDIA. In September 2025, the two companies announced an investment framework under which NVIDIA intends to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, starting in 2026. The capital infusion will help build and deploy at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA AI data centre systems.
The ChatGPT maker expects the first phase of data centres to come online in the second half of 2026.
Synopsys
In December 2025, NVIDIA announced a $2 billion equity investment in Synopsys, a semiconductor EDA (Electronic Design Automation) and IP leader, tied to a broad multi-year partnership.
This deal goes beyond typical venture financing. It integrates NVIDIA’s accelerated computing into design tools used across chip and system engineering for faster simulation and shorter design cycles.
Both companies said the partnership addresses rising workflow complexity, higher development costs, and pressure to shorten time-to-market across sectors, including semiconductors, aerospace, automotive, and industrial engineering.
Intel
NVIDIA made a major move by investing $5 billion in Intel through the purchase of common stock, giving it a significant equity stake in one of its longtime competitors.
Under the agreement, Intel will develop custom x86 CPUs for NVIDIA to use in its data centres, while also producing x86 system-on-chips that integrate NVIDIA RTX GPU chiplets for next-generation personal computers.
Nokia
NVIDIA announced a $1 billion investment in Nokia in October to support the development of AI-driven 5G and 6G networks, fuelling the chipmaker’s expansion into AI-focused telecom infrastructure. As part of the partnership, Nokia will integrate NVIDIA’s CUDA platform—a parallel computing platform and API model—into its radio access network software.
As 6G standards take shape, combining NVIDIA’s compute platforms with Nokia’s RAN expertise could accelerate the shift toward AI-native wireless networks.
Reflection AI
NVIDIA invested in Reflection AI as part of a huge $2 billion funding round that pushed the New York–based startup’s valuation to about $8 billion.
Reflection AI, founded by former DeepMind researchers, is building advanced AI systems that automate software development and other complex engineering tasks. Its models use large-context reasoning and agent-style workflows to solve complex autonomous coding challenges.
Mistral AI
Mistral AI, a leading European generative AI company, was part of NVIDIA’s investment portfolio in 2025. The French startup raised Series C funding of €1.7 billion (≈$1.99 billion), with NVIDIA participating in the round.
The companies also partnered to launch a new family of open source models.
Mistral’s models compete with major global LLM players and reflect NVIDIA’s strategy of supporting diverse AI model ecosystems across geographies.
Thinking Machines Lab
Thinking Machines Lab, an AI startup founded this year and led by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, raised a massive seed funding round of about $2 billion at a $12 billion valuation, with participation from heavyweights including NVIDIA, AMD, Cisco, and Jane Street.
The San Francisco-based startup is working on new kinds of AI systems that can handle many different tasks by combining advanced models with new system designs. The startup aims to build more reliable, safe, and accessible AI, unlike autonomous systems.
CoreWeave
NVIDIA increased its stake in CoreWeave, reaching about 24 million shares worth $3–4 billion by mid-year. This made CoreWeave one of NVIDIA’s biggest investments.
The stake grew from 17.9 million shares after the company’s March IPO to 24.28 million by August, as NVIDIA secured a key customer and GPU cloud provider as AI demand rises.
The investment sits alongside a $6.3 billion cloud capacity backstop deal signed in 2023 but revealed in September this year. It obligates NVIDIA to pay CoreWeave through 2032 for any unsold data centre capacity.
Perplexity AI
NVIDIA, among other ventures, backed Perplexity AI in its $100 million financing that skyrocketed the AI search startup’s valuation to $18 billion.
This followed NVIDIA’s initial 2023 investment, with the chip giant joining heavyweights like SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and NEA to fuel Perplexity’s growth, including a massive $500 million infusion in late 2024.
NVIDIA skipped the follow-on September $200 million raise at $20 billion valuation, in September this year, but ties remain strong through integrations in its sovereign AI projects for multilingual search capabilities.
Wayve
Wayve, a UK-based self-learning autonomous driving AI startup, signed a letter of intent with NVIDIA for a $500 million investment.
Wayve focuses on developing generalisable driving skills via machine learning. NVIDIA’s involvement supports AI compute inside vehicles and in cloud training.
Lila Sciences
Lila Sciences, which works on scientific superintelligence and AI-driven laboratory automation, raised $115 million in an extension round that saw participation from NVIDIA’s investment arm, NVentures, bringing its valuation to more than $1.3 billion.
This investment extends NVIDIA’s reach into AI-augmented scientific workflows, where massive datasets and complex models accelerate discovery in chemistry, materials science, and biology.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems
NVIDIA participated in an $863 million funding round for Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a nuclear fusion energy startup.
The investment supports the US startup in achieving commercial fusion power by the 2030s through its GPUs that offer high-performance computing for simulations.
Figure AI
NVIDIA is an investor in Figure AI, a US robotics company developing AI-powered humanoid robots to perform physical tasks in industrial, commercial, and domestic environments.
The company first raised major funding in a large $675 million round in February last year, with participation from NVIDIA, along with Microsoft, Jeff Bezos, and other technology investors.
This year, Figure AI continued to attract investment as it expanded its technology lineup, including its Helix AI system and BotQ manufacturing facilities, and reached a $39 billion valuation in a Series C funding round, with NVIDIA participating alongside other major partners.
The post The Top 13 Companies NVIDIA Bet Billions On in 2025 appeared first on Analytics India Magazine.
