Nvidia Is Coming for OpenAI and DeepSeek With $6 Billion Poolside Deal to Build a Powerful Open-Weight AI

Nvidia Corp (NASDAQ:NVDA) is making an aggressive push into AI models, striking a multibillion-dollar deal with Poolside to develop a powerful open-weight system aimed at rivals including OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek and Kimi.

Nvidia Bets $6 Billion on Poolside AI Technology

Nvidia will pay $6 billion to license Poolside’s AI technology and invest another $1 billion in the startup at a $12 billion pre-money valuation, according to The Wall Street Journal.

More than 100 Poolside employees, including engineers, are also expected to join Nvidia and work on its Nemotron open-weight AI project.

Poolside said its Nvidia deal aims to advance AGI as an open technology rather than one "controlled by few," according to a shareholder letter reviewed by the publication.

Poolside will remain independent, with founders Eiso Kant and Jason Warner staying outside Nvidia while continuing unspecified research work.

Nvidia and Poolside did not immediately respond to Benzinga’s request for comment.

Nvidia Takes Aim at DeepSeek, Kimi and OpenAI

The deal underscores Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s growing focus on open-weight AI models, which can be downloaded, customized and deployed more flexibly than closed models.