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In chess, the Queen’s Gambit begins with what looks like a sacrifice.
Despite the name, you don’t give up your queen. You offer a pawn, accepting a little risk early in exchange for something potentially far more valuable: control of the center of the board.
Here’s what the setup looks like…
(Credit: chess.com)
It’s a strategy that has been used at the highest levels of chess for generations. Garry Kasparov, one of the greatest players in the history of chess, repeatedly battled through Queen’s Gambit positions during his legendary World Championship matches with Anatoly Karpov.
Lately, I’ve been wondering whether Jensen Huang is playing his own version of the Queen’s Gambit at NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA).
For years, Huang has been willing to put billions of dollars of NVIDIA’s capital at risk across the AI ecosystem. NVIDIA has put roughly $30 billion into OpenAI. It has invested billions in CoreWeave, Inc. (CRWV), Nebius Group N.V. (NBIS), Marvell Technology, Inc. (MRVL), Synopsys, Inc. (SNPS), Coherent Corp. (COHR), Lumentum Holdings Inc. (LITE), IREN Limited (IREN) and Corning, Inc. (GLW) – many of which turn around and spend heavily on NVIDIA’s GPUs and infrastructure.
It also owns major stakes in Intel Corp. (INTC) and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SPCX).
Critics have a name for that: “circular financing.”
Their argument is straightforward. NVIDIA gives money to AI companies. Those companies use some of that money to buy NVIDIA products. NVIDIA books the revenue, makes more money and invests even more back into the ecosystem.
Looked at one way, that can seem dangerously self-reinforcing.
However, I think Huang may have been sacrificing a few pawns to gain control of the center of the AI board.
And now he’s made two moves that could change the game entirely.
So, in today’s Market 360, let’s look at how Huang’s Queen’s Gambit has worked so far… the two new moves that could tighten NVIDIA’s grip on the AI economy… and whether the king of AI is getting closer to checkmate.
The Gambit
First, it helps to understand just how aggressive NVIDIA has become as an investor.
Between 2021 and 2025, NVIDIA participated in 283 funding rounds involving 241 different companies. Nearly 85% of them were AI startups.
Its investments now stretch across nearly every layer of the AI ecosystem.
The strategy is fairly easy to understand.
AI companies need extraordinary amounts of computing power. But GPUs, data centers, networking equipment and power infrastructure are extremely expensive. Younger companies in particular may not have enough capital to build everything they need.
So, NVIDIA helps provide it.
That capital allows these companies to expand their AI infrastructure. And much of that infrastructure, naturally, runs on NVIDIA technology.
Critics argue that this creates a circular system.
NVIDIA invests money in a company. The company buys NVIDIA GPUs. NVIDIA generates more revenue. And NVIDIA can then invest even more money across the AI ecosystem.
I understand why that makes some investors nervous.
If AI spending eventually slows sharply, NVIDIA could feel the impact twice – first through weaker demand for its core products and again through falling values across the companies and projects it has financed.
But there is another side to this strategy.
Every dollar NVIDIA invests can help remove one of the biggest bottlenecks facing the AI boom: access to compute.
And every new data center built around NVIDIA hardware makes its ecosystem a little harder to displace.
That’s the gambit.
Huang is accepting additional financial exposure in exchange for greater control of the center of the AI economy.
And now he appears to be taking that strategy to another level.
Is “Checkmate” on the Horizon?
The first major move came on August 10.
NVIDIA announced agreements with Apollo Global Management, Inc. (APO), BlackRock, Inc. (BLK), Blackstone Inc. (BX), Brookfield Corporation (BN), Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (GS) and KKR & Co., Inc. (KKR) to establish independent financing platforms designed to mobilize more than $500 billion of third-party capital for AI infrastructure.
Think about what Huang is doing here.
Instead of NVIDIA having to provide all the money required to keep the AI buildout moving, some of the largest pools of capital on Wall Street can help finance it.
The platforms are designed to fund GPUs, data centers, networking equipment, power infrastructure and other components needed by hyperscalers, AI labs and enterprises. NVIDIA itself describes the goal as turning AI compute into an “investable asset class” for global capital.
And NVIDIA still gets to sell the hardware.
That alone strikes me as a very clever answer to the circular-financing criticism.
If Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR are willing to put outside capital behind these projects, it becomes harder to argue that NVIDIA is simply manufacturing demand by financing its own customers.
But then Huang made another move.
On Monday, NVIDIA announced a major new arrangement involving OpenAI and SB Energy (owned by Softbank) at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio.
OpenAI has agreed to use roughly 8 gigawatts of computing capacity at the campus under a 20-year lease. And every bit of that AI compute infrastructure will run exclusively on NVIDIA technology.
NVIDIA, meanwhile, is investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy and providing credit support for the land, power and shell infrastructure needed for the initial 4.25 gigawatts of capacity. NVIDIA also has an option tied to the remaining 3.75 gigawatts.
This deal certainly won’t silence every circular-financing critic. NVIDIA is still putting capital at risk to help secure infrastructure for one of its biggest customers.
But let’s look at the whole board Huang is creating.
OpenAI gets the computing capacity it needs. SB Energy builds and operates the data center. Wall Street and infrastructure investors increasingly provide the capital.
And NVIDIA supplies the GPUs, CPUs, networking and full-stack systems at the center of it all.
That’s why I’m reluctant to dismiss these deals as simple financial engineering.
Huang may be building something much larger.
For years, NVIDIA has been the arms merchant of the AI Revolution.
Now it is helping build the financial system that allows its customers to keep buying the arms.
I wouldn’t call checkmate just yet. There are still plenty of pieces on the board, including Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (抖阴最新版), Alphabet, Inc.’s (GOOG) custom chips and a growing number of companies developing their own AI silicon.
But Huang is making it increasingly difficult to compete with NVIDIA on chips alone.
You may now have to compete with its software. Its networking. Its enormous installed base. Its relationships throughout the AI ecosystem.
And increasingly, the financing infrastructure surrounding all of it.
That is a formidable position, folks.
The Next Move for AI Investors
I’ve been bullish on NVIDIA for years, and that hasn’t changed.
The stock has made my subscribers a tremendous amount of money, and I continue to believe NVIDIA is one of the premier companies of the AI Revolution.
But there’s an important lesson in Huang’s strategy for individual investors, too.
Chess isn’t won simply by having the most powerful piece on the board. It’s won by understanding how all the pieces work together.
And that’s becoming increasingly important for investors as well.
That’s why my yesterday with my InvestorPlace colleagues Luke Lango and 抖阴最新版 was so important.
See, Luke, Eric and I have identified a tremendous number of opportunities throughout this AI Revolution. Over the past year alone, we’ve collectively issued more than 200 recommendations.
But here’s what’s different now.
We’ve taken the very best of those ideas — the highest-conviction, most powerful opportunities across all three of our research teams — and built something new: a concentrated portfolio of just 19 positions.
Just 19 of what we believe are the absolute best AI and technology opportunities available today.
Think of it as applying the principles of chess to investing – where every position has a purpose, and every holding is chosen because it strengthens the whole board.
See where I’m going with this?
The challenge now isn’t simply finding another AI stock we like. It’s figuring out which opportunities deserve your money, how much belongs in each one and how all those investments should fit together.
That’s a major reason why, after 47 years, .
During our special event, I sat down with Luke and Eric to explain exactly what’s changing – and how we plan to approach the AI opportunity differently from here.
I’m not retiring. But I’ve come to believe that finding great stocks is only one part of the job.
Sincerely,
抖阴最新版
Editor, Market 360
The Editor hereby discloses that as of the date of this email, the Editor, directly or indirectly, owns the following securities that are the subject of the commentary, analysis, opinions, advice, or recommendations in, or which are otherwise mentioned in, the essay set forth below:
Alphabet, Inc. (GOOG), Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (抖阴最新版), Coherent Corp. (COHR) and NVIDIA Corporation (NVDA)
