Nvidia joins forces with six Wall Street giants to raise $500 billions betting on AI infrastructure; credit default swaps see largest two-week surge

NVIDIA is seeking to partner with a group of top U.S. financial institutions to raise up to $500 billion in funding for artificial intelligence infrastructure projects.

On Monday, August 10, according to the Financial Times citing sources familiar with the matter, Wall Street giants such as Apollo, Blackstone, BlackRock's Global Infrastructure Partners, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs, and KKR are in negotiations with NVIDIA over a $500 billion AI infrastructure financing arrangement, with the deal possibly being officially announced as early as today.

The report indicates that the participating institutions will form a consortium to establish a dedicated investment fund, with the funds to be used specifically for AI chip procurement, electricity generation, and data center construction.

If the deal ultimately materializes, it would rank among the largest financing actions in Wall Street history, further highlighting the trend of mainstream financial capital entering the AI infrastructure sector on a massive scale.

After the news was released, NVIDIA's share price briefly fell by 3.2%. At the same time, the price of the company's 5-year credit default swaps (CDS), a measure of its credit risk, jumped to 77.215 basis points on Monday, up about 5.3 basis points from the previous trading day, marking the largest single-day increase in two weeks.

This partnership is not NVIDIA’s first deep involvement in the AI industry’s financing efforts.

Last month, NVIDIA announced it would expand cooperation with South Korean conglomerate SK Group, with the total value of the collaboration exceeding $500 billion;

Previous reports also stated that NVIDIA is in talks to provide up to $25 billion in financing guarantees for OpenAI to help it secure computing power in U.S. data centers;

Other reports show that NVIDIA is also discussing $35 billion in financing for OpenAI’s chip procurement plans.

At the same time, NVIDIA also announced last month a “significant” investment in Safe Superintelligence Inc., the AI startup co-founded by former OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.

These actions indicate that NVIDIA is gradually transforming itself from a chip supplier into a central capital mobilizer of the AI infrastructure ecosystem, reinforcing its strategic position in the industry value chain through deep involvement in financing arrangements.

The series of financing arrangements aggressively pursued by NVIDIA has also caused growing concerns in the market.

Some investors believe that the massive agreements NVIDIA is signing within the AI ecosystem have the nature of circular transactions. While these deals raise expectations of sector demand, they may also result in inflated valuations.

The jump in NVIDIA’s CDS prices reflects the market’s increasing attention to the potential credit risks arising from its large-scale financing model.

Analysts note that whether this approach—where technology giants take on debt or leverage external capital to develop AI infrastructure on a large scale—can be sustainable over the long term remains a core issue for the market to monitor.