How did Nvidia's dealmaking change after its Arm bid failed?
Nvidia did not simply stop acquiring companies after Arm failed; it diversified its toolkit. It bought AI-infrastructure software, including Run:ai, joined OpenAI’s $6.6 billion financing round in 2024, and then paired conventional purchases with an Intel stake, a letter of intent to put up to $100 billion into OpenAI as it deployed Nvidia systems, Anthropic funding and Groq’s licence-plus-hire arrangement. The 2025 OpenAI commitment then became concrete: Nvidia put $30 billion into the financing round OpenAI announced in February 2026, and OpenAI closed that round with $122 billion in committed capital. The practical reading is that Arm exposed the difficulty of an enormous architecture takeover, while later deals spread expansion across software, partnerships, equity and technology access rather than relying on one kind of transaction.
Trace the chain
Big-bid setback
- 1First big infrastructure dealAnnouncement
Nvidia agrees to buy Mellanox for $6.9 billion, outbidding Intel for the InfiniBand maker
Nvidia's first big acquisition, at $125 a share in cash, brought in the Israeli maker of InfiniBand and Ethernet interconnects that already sat inside most of the world's top supercomputers, after reports that Intel and Xilinx had also bid. Jensen Huang framed it as uniting compute and networking for data-center-scale computing; the deal needed approvals in the US, EU, Mexico and China.
NVIDIA Newsroom ·
NVIDIA and Mellanox today announced that the companies have reached a definitive agreement under which NVIDIA will acquire Mellanox. Pursuant to the agreement, NVIDIA will acquire all of the issued and outstanding…
Why it matters here. Buying Mellanox brought InfiniBand and Ethernet interconnects into Nvidia's data-center business, establishing its willingness to use a major acquisition for infrastructure before pursuing an Arm-scale deal.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 2Arm's $40 billion bidAnnouncement
Nvidia agrees to buy Arm from SoftBank for $40 billion in shares and cash
The largest chip deal ever proposed would have put the architecture behind nearly every smartphone under the company that dominated AI accelerators, with SoftBank keeping under 10 percent of Nvidia. Huang promised to keep Arm's open licensing model and its Cambridge headquarters; customers including Qualcomm, Google and Microsoft objected within months.
NVIDIA Newsroom ·
NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Corp. (SBG) today announced a definitive agreement under which NVIDIA will acquire Arm Limited from SBG and the SoftBank Vision Fund (together, “SoftBank”) in a transaction valued at $40…
Why it matters here. Putting the architecture behind nearly every smartphone under the company dominant in AI accelerators invited the vertical-competition challenge the FTC brought next.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 3FTC Arm challengeLegal
FTC sues to block the Arm acquisition as a vertical threat to chip competition
The Federal Trade Commission voted 4-0 to challenge the deal, arguing that owning Arm would let Nvidia stifle rivals that depend on Arm designs in data center CPUs, automotive and DPUs, and give it access to competitors' confidential information. The UK's CMA had already opened an in-depth probe on national-security and competition grounds and the European Commission a Phase 2 review.
Federal Trade Commission ·
The Federal Trade Commission today sued to block U.S. chip supplier Nvidia Corp.’s $40 billion acquisition of U.K. chip design provider Arm Ltd. Semiconductor chips power the computers and technologies that are…
Why it matters here. The FTC's unanimous challenge turned the proposal into a direct regulatory fight, so the parties soon terminated the agreement citing significant regulatory challenges.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 4Arm bid abandonedAnnouncement
Nvidia and SoftBank abandon the Arm deal; SoftBank keeps the $1.25 billion prepayment and plans an IPO
Seventeen months after signing, the companies terminated the agreement, citing significant regulatory challenges, and Nvidia wrote off the $1.36 billion it had prepaid. Arm listed on Nasdaq in September 2023 at a $54 billion valuation; Nvidia kept a 20-year Arm architecture licence and went on to build its own Arm-based Grace CPUs.
NVIDIA Newsroom ·
NVIDIA and SoftBank Group Corp. (“SBG” or “SoftBank”) today announced the termination of the previously announced transaction whereby NVIDIA would acquire Arm Limited (“Arm”) from SBG. The parties agreed to terminate…
Why it matters here. The failed transaction and Nvidia's $1.36 billion write-off left the Arm purchase unclosed, so later expansion returned through GPU-software targets.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
Software acquisitions
- 5Run:ai software buyAnnouncement
Run:ai, a GPU orchestration startup, for a reported $700 million starts the 2024 software buying spree
Nvidia agreed to buy the Israeli Kubernetes-based scheduling company, reportedly for about $700 million, its largest purchase since Mellanox, to help customers squeeze more out of their GPU clusters. It was the first of at least five 2024 acquisitions, most of them Israeli or AI-infrastructure software firms.
NVIDIA Blog ·
To help customers make more efficient use of their AI computing resources, NVIDIA today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Run:ai, a Kubernetes-based workload management and orchestration…
Why it matters here. Acquiring Kubernetes scheduling software to help customers use GPUs more efficiently shifted the target toward software around Nvidia hardware, setting up a regulatory test of that approach.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 7Run:ai closesAnnouncement
Run:ai closes; Nvidia says it will open-source the software
Nvidia completed the Run:ai purchase ten days after EU clearance, and Run:ai's founders said the platform, which then supported only Nvidia GPUs, would be open-sourced so it could extend to the whole AI ecosystem, blunting concerns that Nvidia would use it to lock in its hardware.
SiliconANGLE ·
Nvidia plans to open-source Run:ai’s platform following the acquisition, the latter company announced in a blog post today.
Why it matters here. Completing Run:ai and promising to open-source software that then supported only Nvidia GPUs paired a finished acquisition with an openness commitment before Nvidia widened its deal structures.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
Capital and accessRuns from 2024, alongside the strands above, not after them
- 8OpenAI financing roundFinancial
Nvidia joins OpenAI's $6.6 billion financing round
OpenAI raised $6.6 billion in new funding at a $157 billion post-money valuation. Axios reported that Nvidia joined the round led by Thrive Capital.
OpenAI ·
We’ve raised $6.6B in new funding at a $157B post-money valuation to accelerate progress on our mission.
Why it matters here. Joining OpenAI’s $6.6 billion financing round put equity participation alongside acquisitions in Nvidia’s dealmaking, leading into the next equity-and-partnership transaction.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 9Intel stake and pactAnnouncement
$5 billion for a stake in Intel, with joint data center and PC chips
Nvidia agreed to buy $5 billion of Intel common stock at $23.28 a share and to co-develop custom x86 CPUs linked to Nvidia GPUs over NVLink for data centers and PCs, a month after the US government took its own 10 percent stake in Intel. The same day CNBC reported the Enfabrica acquihire.
NVIDIA Newsroom ·
NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) and Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) today announced a collaboration to jointly develop multiple generations of custom data center and PC products that accelerate applications and workloads across…
Why it matters here. The Intel transaction combined a $5 billion equity stake with co-developed x86 CPUs linked to Nvidia GPUs, so the next proposal could fund a customer's system deployment rather than acquire it.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 10OpenAI deployment investmentAnnouncement
Letter of intent to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI as it deploys 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems
The largest investment Nvidia had ever proposed: a non-binding agreement to put up to $100 billion into OpenAI progressively as each gigawatt of Nvidia systems is deployed, starting with the first gigawatt on Vera Rubin in the second half of 2026. Critics called it circular financing; the definitive terms were still being negotiated months later.
NVIDIA Newsroom ·
OpenAI and NVIDIA today announced a letter of intent for a landmark strategic partnership to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of NVIDIA systems for OpenAI’s next-generation AI infrastructure to train and run its next…
Why it matters here. Nvidia's non-binding plan to invest up to $100 billion as OpenAI deployed at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems made investment a tool tied to customer GPU deployment, a form it next used in its planned Anthropic investment.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 11Anthropic investmentAnnouncement
Up to $10 billion into Anthropic alongside Microsoft, at a valuation near $350 billion
Nvidia and Microsoft announced investments of up to $10 billion and $5 billion in Anthropic, with Anthropic committing to buy $30 billion of Azure capacity and up to a gigawatt of Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin systems, and to optimise Claude for Nvidia hardware. It gave Nvidia equity in both of the leading frontier labs.
CNBC ·
Microsoft will invest up to $5 billion into Anthropic, while Nvidia will invest up to $10 billion into the startup, pushing Anthropic's valuation to the range of $350 billion.
Why it matters here. Nvidia's planned investment of up to $10 billion in Anthropic, alongside commitments to Azure capacity and Nvidia systems, preceded its use of a non-exclusive Groq licence and senior hires to obtain technology and personnel without acquiring Groq outright.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 12Groq licence and hiresAnnouncement
Groq: about $20 billion for a non-exclusive licence and the founding team, Nvidia's biggest deal by far
On Christmas Eve Nvidia agreed to pay roughly $20 billion in cash for a perpetual, non-exclusive licence to Groq's inference-chip patents and software and to hire founder Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra and other staff, while Groq and GroqCloud nominally continued as an independent company. Structured as a licence rather than a merger, the deal avoided a Hart-Scott-Rodino filing; analysts said it kept 'the fiction of competition alive'.
CNBC ·
Nvidia is making its largest purchase ever, acquiring assets from 9-year-old chip startup Groq for about $20 billion.
Why it matters here. Paying for a perpetual non-exclusive licence to Groq technology while hiring its founding team showed Nvidia could obtain technology and personnel without an outright acquisition.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 13OpenAI funding investmentFinancial
OpenAI announces $110 billion financing round including NVIDIA investment
OpenAI announced a $110 billion financing round that included a $30 billion investment from NVIDIA. OpenAI put the round's pre-money valuation at $730 billion and identified Amazon and SoftBank as other major investors. It said NVIDIA would provide 3 gigawatts of dedicated inference capacity and 2 gigawatts of Vera Rubin training capacity.
OpenAI ·
This includes $30B from SoftBank, $30B from NVIDIA, and $50B from Amazon.
Why it matters here. The announced $30 billion NVIDIA investment and dedicated inference capacity provided a disclosed financing commitment after the former non-binding proposal, so the next entry records the round's close.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- 14OpenAI round closesFinancial
OpenAI closes funding round with $122 billion in committed capital
OpenAI said it had closed its financing round with $122 billion in committed capital at a post-money valuation of $852 billion, naming NVIDIA, Amazon and SoftBank as anchor investors with continued participation from Microsoft. CNBC reported the total was up from the $110 billion OpenAI had announced in February and called it the largest private funding round in Silicon Valley history.
OpenAI ·
Today, we closed our latest funding round with $122 billion in committed capital at a post money valuation of $852 billion.
Why it matters here. The close at $122 billion in committed capital turned the announced investment into a completed financing, the furthest point the equity strand reaches.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
What pushes back
- 6EU clears Run:ai
European Commission clears Run:ai unconditionally in its first post-Illumina Article 22 case
Although the deal fell below EU turnover thresholds, Italy's competition authority referred it to Brussels under Article 22 and the Commission opened a review in November. It found Run:ai had no significant position in GPU orchestration software and that customers had credible alternatives, and approved the deal without conditions; the US Justice Department had also examined it.
European Commission ·
The European Commission has approved unconditionally, under the EU Merger Regulation (‘EUMR'), the proposed acquisition of Run:ai Labs Ltd (‘ Run:ai ') by NVIDIA Corporation (‘ NVIDIA' ). The Commission concluded that…
What it pushes against. This pushes against a claim that review always stops Nvidia: the Commission cleared the below-threshold Run:ai deal unconditionally, so Nvidia could complete the purchase.
Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
Changes to this chain
- Proposal #201 accepted (publish:nvidia-acquisitions): insert after 7: [cause] OpenAI financing round -> nvidia-acquisitions#714: Joining OpenAI’s $6.6 billion financing round put equity participation alongside acquisitions in Nvidia’s dealmaking, leading into the next equity-and-partnership transaction.; answer: Nvidia did not simply stop acquiring companies after Arm failed; it diversified its toolkit. It bought AI-infrastructure software, including Run:ai, joined OpenAI’s $6.6 billion financing round in 2024, and then paired conventional purchases with an Intel stake, a letter of intent to put up to $100 billion into OpenAI as it deployed Nvidia systems, Anthropic funding and Groq’s licence-plus-hire arrangement. The 2025 OpenAI commitment then became concrete: Nvidia put $30 billion into the financing round OpenAI announced in February 2026, and OpenAI closed that round with $122 billion in committed capital. The practical reading is that Arm exposed the difficulty of an enormous architecture takeover, while later deals spread expansion across software, partnerships, equity and technology access rather than relying on one kind of transaction.
- Step 13 added by the editor: the round's close is its own entry, and the answer rewritten so the 2025 letter of intent leads into the February 2026 investment instead of being replaced by it.
- Proposal #191 accepted (publish:nvidia-acquisitions): insert after 11: [cause] OpenAI funding investment -> nvidia-acquisitions#1809: The announced $30 billion NVIDIA investment and dedicated inference capacity provided a disclosed financing commitment after the former non-binding proposal, so the next entry records the round's close.
- Step 4 why edited by the editor: Drop a deal size the cited entries do not carry
- Proposal #23 accepted (verify:v1): why of step 9 -> Nvidia's non-binding plan to invest up to $100 billion as OpenAI deployed at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems made investment a tool tied to customer GPU deployment, a form it next used in its planned Anthropic investment.; why of step 10 -> Nvidia's planned investment of up to $10 billion in Anthropic, alongside commitments to Azure capacity and Nvidia systems, preceded its use of a non-exclusive Groq licence and senior hires to obtain technology and personnel without acquiring Groq outright.
Timelines in this chain
- Nvidia's Dealmaking: From Mellanox and the Failed Arm Bid to Groq and Hugging Face
- US Export Controls on Nvidia AI Chips to China: A100 to H20 to H200
- Nvidia Data Center GPUs: Hopper, Blackwell and Vera Rubin
- OpenAI Frontier Models: From GPT-4 to GPT-6 Astra
A chain is written by the editor from entries already published on the timelines above, each of which was read against its source before publication. The chain changes when those entries do. Data and terms.