Sam Altman’s most ambitious deal of 2025 is facing uncertainty, reports the Wall Street Journal. World’s biggest chip maker Nvidia announced to make a planned investment of $100 billion in ChatGPT-maker OpenAI last year. However, the talks have now been stalled after some inside the chip giant expressed doubts about the deal, the report says quoting people familiar with the matter. The stalled negotiations come amid growing investor concerns over OpenAI’s rising costs, intense competition, and long-term sustainability. Much of these concerns stem from Google’s Gemini success leading OpenAI to declare an internal code red.

What the Nvidia–OpenAI deal involved

The partnership was announced at Nvidia’s headquarters in Santa Clara, California last year, where the two companies revealed a memorandum of understanding. Under the plan, Nvidia would build at least 10 gigawatts of computing power for OpenAI and invest up to $100 billion to help the company train and run its AI models. OpenAI agreed to lease the chips from Nvidia as part of the deal.At the time, OpenAI expected negotiations to conclude within weeks. However, people familiar with the talks said discussions have not progressed beyond preliminary stages. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has since emphasized privately that the agreement was nonbinding and never finalized.

Nvidia raises internal concerns

According to people familiar with the matter, Huang has expressed concerns about what he described as a lack of discipline in OpenAI’s business approach. He has also privately pointed to growing competition from companies such as Google and Anthropic.In a November filing, Nvidia stated that there was no guarantee it would enter into definitive agreements related to OpenAI. Nvidia CFO Colette Kress later confirmed at a UBS conference that a final agreement had not been completed.Despite this, Nvidia said it remains committed to the relationship. “NVIDIA technology has underpinned our breakthroughs from the start, powers our systems today, and will remain central as we scale what comes next,” an OpenAI spokesperson said. An Nvidia spokeswoman added that Nvidia has been OpenAI’s preferred partner for the past decade.

OpenAI’s funding pressure grows

OpenAI has spent much of the past year securing massive computing commitments as it builds toward a possible IPO. The stalled Nvidia deal is a setback for that strategy. Altman has acknowledged that OpenAI has signed agreements totaling $1.4 trillion in computing commitments, more than 100 times the revenue the company was on track to generate last year.Investors have grown uneasy about OpenAI’s ability to finance these deals, leading to selloffs in some technology stocks linked to the company. OpenAI executives have said the total commitments are lower once overlapping agreements are accounted for and that the costs will be spread over many years.

Competition adds to pressure

Adding to OpenAI’s worries is the increased competition from rivals. Google’s Gemini app has grown rapidly, Anthropic’s Claude has also gained traction. Separately, Nvidia has committed up to $10 billion to Anthropic, which relies on chips from Amazon Web Services and Google’s in-house processors, posing a challenge to Nvidia’s GPU dominance.Jensen Huang has indicated privately that supporting OpenAI remains important, as OpenAI is one of Nvidia’s largest customers. If OpenAI loses ground to rivals, it could impact Nvidia’s future sales.For now, the future of what Huang once called “the largest computing project in history” remains uncertain.