{"id":"1640","title":"Nvidia, OpenAI and CoreWeave: AI’s Financing Loops","source_title":"Nvidia OpenAI circle game. Take a breath.","url":"https://reinouttebrake.com/stories/nvidia-openai-circle-game-take-a-breath","published":"2025-11-16T16:19:17+01:00","modified":"2026-10-17T17:04:06.349Z","source_modified":"2025-11-16T16:19:17+01:00","author":{"name":"Reinout te Brake","url":"https://reinouttebrake.com/about","description":"Reinout te Brake is an entrepreneur, consultant, investor and board member with 20+ years in tech and gaming, advising CEOs, management teams and investors.","profiles":[{"name":"LinkedIn","url":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/reinouttebrake/"},{"name":"Facebook","url":"https://www.facebook.com/Reinoutttebrake"},{"name":"Instagram","url":"https://www.instagram.com/reinouttebrake/"}]},"summary":"A 2025 examination of overlapping investment, chip supply and cloud contracts involving Nvidia, OpenAI, Microsoft and CoreWeave.","categories":[{"name":"Nvidia","slug":"nvidia"}],"tags":[{"name":"AI","slug":"ai"},{"name":"Nvidia","slug":"nvidia"},{"name":"Tech","slug":"tech"}],"source_url":"https://reinouttebrakecom.wordpress.com/2025/11/16/nvidia-openai-circle-game-take-a-breath/","data_url":"https://reinouttebrake.com/data/articles/nvidia-openai-circle-game-take-a-breath.json","text_url":"https://reinouttebrake.com/stories/nvidia-openai-circle-game-take-a-breath.txt","markdown_url":"https://reinouttebrake.com/stories/nvidia-openai-circle-game-take-a-breath.md","reader_question":"How do AI companies’ investment and supplier relationships overlap?","topic_guide":"https://reinouttebrake.com/topic/ai","content_html":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You look at it and think, yep, here we go again. It feels like the same three players keep handing each other money, chips, and cloud space, and everyone pretends it’s perfectly normal. And it is. Until it isn’t.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Look. Nvidia puts money into OpenAI. Microsoft is already in OpenAI. Microsoft provides cloud services to OpenAI, so OpenAI is a customer. But the money they use to <em>be</em> that customer… comes from Microsoft. Nice little loop.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And on top of that, Nvidia supplies the chips OpenAI runs on. So Nvidia is an investor, and Nvidia is a supplier. It’s like refereeing a match you also play in. Totally allowed. As long as nobody trips.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Then you’ve got CoreWeave. The company that went public this year. Data centers. GPU power. Heavy compute for AI giants like Microsoft. And guess who their biggest customer is. Right. <a href=\"/stories/ai-isnt-inflated-big-techs-earnings-are\">Microsoft</a>. Not through some sneaky route. Just straight up.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Microsoft doesn’t own a stake in CoreWeave, but the real punchline is the hardware. Nvidia supplies almost all the chips CoreWeave uses. And Nvidia also owns a “meaningful” stake in the company. Total coincidence. Of course.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when CoreWeave almost couldn’t close its financing before the IPO, Nvidia stepped in at the last minute and bought 250 million dollars of shares. Just so the deal could close. Like someone saying, hey, I’ll throw in the last ten bucks so you can buy that sandwich. Except with a few extra zeros.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And who handed out the loan right before the IPO. JPMorgan. And who got paid back the moment CoreWeave went public. Exactly. JPMorgan. And who stood on the other side of the deal as one of the lead underwriters. You can guess.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No one’s doing anything illegal. No one’s cheating. It’s more that it all feels familiar. Like déjà vu from twenty, twenty-five years ago. Same movements. Same patterns. Everyone keeping each other standing. Until one of them doesn’t.</p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then, yeah. Then suddenly it does mean something. Until that moment, it’s mainly a loop of familiar faces passing the ball around.</p>\n<section class=\"article-sources\" aria-label=\"Sources and context\"><h2>Sources and context</h2><ul><li><a href=\"https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/openai-and-nvidia-announce-strategic-partnership-to-deploy-10gw-of-nvidia-systems\">Nvidia: OpenAI partnership letter of intent (22 September 2025)</a> <span>(company announcement)</span></li></ul></section>","content_text":"You look at it and think, yep, here we go again. It feels like the same three players keep handing each other money, chips, and cloud space, and everyone pretends it’s perfectly normal. And it is. Until it isn’t.\n\nLook. Nvidia puts money into OpenAI. Microsoft is already in OpenAI. Microsoft provides cloud services to OpenAI, so OpenAI is a customer. But the money they use to be that customer… comes from Microsoft. Nice little loop.\n\nAnd on top of that, Nvidia supplies the chips OpenAI runs on. So Nvidia is an investor, and Nvidia is a supplier. It’s like refereeing a match you also play in. Totally allowed. As long as nobody trips.\n\nThen you’ve got CoreWeave. The company that went public this year. Data centers. GPU power. Heavy compute for AI giants like Microsoft. And guess who their biggest customer is. Right. Microsoft (https://reinouttebrake.com/stories/ai-isnt-inflated-big-techs-earnings-are). Not through some sneaky route. Just straight up.\n\nMicrosoft doesn’t own a stake in CoreWeave, but the real punchline is the hardware. Nvidia supplies almost all the chips CoreWeave uses. And Nvidia also owns a “meaningful” stake in the company. Total coincidence. Of course.\n\nAnd when CoreWeave almost couldn’t close its financing before the IPO, Nvidia stepped in at the last minute and bought 250 million dollars of shares. Just so the deal could close. Like someone saying, hey, I’ll throw in the last ten bucks so you can buy that sandwich. Except with a few extra zeros.\n\nAnd who handed out the loan right before the IPO. JPMorgan. And who got paid back the moment CoreWeave went public. Exactly. JPMorgan. And who stood on the other side of the deal as one of the lead underwriters. You can guess.\n\nNo one’s doing anything illegal. No one’s cheating. It’s more that it all feels familiar. Like déjà vu from twenty, twenty-five years ago. Same movements. Same patterns. Everyone keeping each other standing. Until one of them doesn’t.\n\nAnd then, yeah. Then suddenly it does mean something. Until that moment, it’s mainly a loop of familiar faces passing the ball around.\n\nSources and context\n\n- Nvidia: OpenAI partnership letter of intent (22 September 2025) (https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/openai-and-nvidia-announce-strategic-partnership-to-deploy-10gw-of-nvidia-systems) (company announcement)","referenced_links":[{"url":"https://reinouttebrake.com/stories/ai-isnt-inflated-big-techs-earnings-are","label":"Microsoft"},{"url":"https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/openai-and-nvidia-announce-strategic-partnership-to-deploy-10gw-of-nvidia-systems","label":"Nvidia: OpenAI partnership letter of intent (22 September 2025)"}],"social_image":"https://reinouttebrake.com/assets/editorial/archive-photo-4508751-1280.webp","citation":"Reinout te Brake. Nvidia, OpenAI and CoreWeave: AI’s Financing Loops. 2025-11-16. https://reinouttebrake.com/stories/nvidia-openai-circle-game-take-a-breath"}