Nvidia to invest $1 billion, license tech for $6 billion to build powerful open-source AI models

Nvidia is set to significantly bolster its open-source artificial intelligence capabilities through a substantial investment and technology licensing deal with AI startup Poolside. The U.S. chip giant plans to invest $1 billion in Poolside at a $12 billion pre-money valuation and pay an additional $6 billion for a license to the startup's technology.

This strategic move is designed to create one of the world's most powerful open-source AI models, directly challenging Chinese competitors like DeepSeek and Kimi K3. The deal also poses a direct threat to leading U.S. AI firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic, as open-source models are typically more cost-effective and easier to customize.

Poolside, co-founded by Eiso Kant and former GitHub CTO Jason Warner, aims for a future where generative AI is a collaborative, open technology rather than a closed system controlled by a few. The agreement with Nvidia is seen as a crucial step toward realizing this vision.

As part of the transaction, over 100 Poolside employees, including its engineers, will transition to Nvidia. They will contribute to Nvidia's Nemotron project, which focuses on developing large and complex open-source models. While Poolside's leadership will not join Nvidia, they will continue independent research. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's increased focus on open-source models is partly a response to the rapid rise of Chinese open-source AI.

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will not be a closed technology controlled by a few, but rather a technology co-built by the many in the open.