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Nvidia opens the funding floodgates

Nvidia opens the funding floodgates

Disney said on Monday that the late-night show host would be back on the air beginning tonight following some “thoughtful conversations” between the various parties. Disney may have also given thought to criticism and pushback it received over Kimmel’s suspension from consumers, investors, and from other artists—with that last group representing an important constituency for an entertainment company whose success depends on creative talent.
With that, here’s today’s tech news —Alexei Oreskovic
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Nvidia opens the funding floodgates for OpenAI
Hot on the heels of pledging a $5 billion investment into Intel, AI chipmaker Nvidia is taking things to a whole new level: On Monday, it said it would pump up to $100 billion into OpenAI in what would be one of the largest investments in the history of artificial intelligence.
The investment into OpenAI will go directly toward building the data center and power capacity necessary to train and run OpenAI’s forthcoming models. The two companies jointly announced that they had signed a letter of intent for a strategic partnership to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems for OpenAI’s next-generation AI infrastructure.
Nvidia’s investment will be progressive and tied to OpenAI’s deployment of each gigawatt of new AI infrastructure, with the first gigawatt scheduled to come online in the second half of 2026 using Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform.
As befits an announcement of such massive sums, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang framed the move in grandiose terms. “We’re literally going to connect intelligence to every application, to every use case, to every device — and we’re just at the beginning,” Huang said in a statement. “This is the first 10 gigawatts, I assure you of that.”—Nick Lichtenberg
Oracle loves AI— and dual CEOs
Oracle announced Monday that longtime CEO Safra Catz will be replaced in the CEO job by two new internal hires: Clay Magouyrk, 39, and Mike Sicilia, 54. Catz, who will become executive vice chair, described the two new CEOs as “a match made in heaven”—two technical executives who can further propel Oracle into the AI era.
The move will marry veteran industry leadership from Sicilia—who joined Oracle after it acquired Primavera Systems in 2008, where he was chief technology officer—with younger cloud-native expertise in Magouyrk, a former engineer at Amazon who went on to found Oracle’s cloud engineering team.
In connection with their promotions, Oracle will give its Millennial and Gen X duo stock option grants valued at $250 million for Magouyrk and $100 million for Sicilia.
Oracle seems to have a thing for the dual CEO model. Catz was originally named co-CEO alongside the late Mark Hurd in 2014. Hurd took a leave of absence in 2019 and died shortly after, leaving Catz as the sole CEO since. —Amanda Gerut
Amazon customer trust on trial
Customer trust is at the top of Amazon’s famous list of leadership principles.
But in a federal courtroom in Seattle, Washington, this week, Amazon’s corporate credo is going on trial.
A federal judge will begin hearing the Federal Trade Commission’s case against Amazon, which alleges that the company intentionally used manipulative web page design tactics known as “dark pattern” to trick customers into signing up for its Prime membership service, and to make it frustratingly difficult to cancel.
Amazon has denied the agency’s claims and has said that the success of Prime, which costs $139 a year in the U.S., is evident in high renewal rates and customer satisfaction scores.
The agency wants the court to impose unspecified fines on Amazon and potentially force it to offer customer refunds if it wins the case, though the more lasting damage to Amazon might be in its credibility with customers and among its own employees to whom it stresses the sanctity of the leadership principles.—Jason Del Rey
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