Nvidia invests billions to expand AI empire across chips, data centers, and infrastructure

Nvidia isn’t just selling the shovels in the AI gold rush anymore. It’s buying the mines, the railroads, and a few of the prospectors too. The chipmaker has been on an unprecedented investment spree in 2026, committing over $40 billion in equity investments across the AI ecosystem. That figure includes a reported $30 billion stake in OpenAI, up to $3.2 billion in fiber-optic specialist Corning, and a $2.1 billion bet on data-center operator IREN. The most recent publicly disclosed move was a $3.5 billion investment to further expand its AI business. The scale of Nvidia’s dealmaking Nvidia has executed at least seven multibillion-dollar public-company investments this year, plus over two dozen private investment rounds. For comparison, SoftBank’s Vision Fund spent about $100 billion across hundreds of companies over several years. Nvidia is approaching half that figure in a matter of months, concentrated almost entirely on AI. The Corning investment, valued at up to $3.2 billion, targets a critical and often overlooked chokepoint in the AI supply chain. Corning manufactures the specialty glass and fiber-optic cables that physically connect data centers. Similarly, the $2.1 billion I...