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NVIDIA

30 stories from 8 sources across 11 topics.

Stories

30

Sources

8

Topics

11

Lead Story

Nvidia’s Growing Dependence On a Few Big Customers

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has very good reason to try to develop new customers by investing in a variety of neocloud and AI firms. For all its success, Nvidia’s sales have become increasingly dependent on a handful of customers—some of which may cut back their purchases over time. That becomes clear when you look at its own disclosures going back several years, which specify how many customers account for more than 10% of sales. In the first half of this fiscal year, ending in July, three such customers were responsible for 44% of total sales. Last fiscal year, two customers accounted for 36% of total sales. Going back to fiscal 2023, Nvidia had no customers accounting for 10% or more of sales (see the chart below).

The Information AI3:00 PMHeat 84
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The Information AI / 4:10 PM

Why AI Companies Are Building Out Wall Street-Style Finance Teams

The financing boom for the AI build-out is getting bigger and more complicated by the day—and AI companies have been staffing up for the challenge. AI labs including OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as neoclouds such as Nscale, are among a growing number of AI companies building out their capital markets teams and hiring specialists in areas like structured finance. That in part reflects the sheer volume of deals these companies are doing, many of which don’t fit neatly into standard corporate debt. This in-house staff can help when it comes to negotiating with lenders and drilling down into construction, power and other key details. Of course, tech and data center companies have long had in-house teams to handle fundraising, deals and other corporate finance needs. And structured finance is nothing new to the infrastructure world. But the scale of the AI build-out, which bankers peg at around $7.5 trillion in spending over the next five years, has pulled relatively young labs and upstart cloud firms into financing arrangements that are new territory. That means finance professionals, from bankers to investors at private equity, private credit and infrastructure firms, have more options in the form of neoclouds and other AI infrastructure startups, some of which are offering significant pre–initial public offering equity. “It's a new avenue for these people,” said James Howl-Newton, founder of Futura Search Partners, a specialist search firm focused on areas including digital infrastructure finance. As a result, “sponsors are having to deal with additional routes to exits for top performers,” he said. AI companies and infrastructure providers are tapping financing frequently and across different instruments, requiring deeper in-house capabilities and expertise than young tech firms have typically needed. One executive overseeing finance hiring at a neocloud noted that leveraged and structured finance backgrounds bring expertise that can help in areas like working through project diligence and getting banks to sign off on deals. Some AI firms may also want to run their own project finance models so they can move quickly through negotiations and have something to compare to lenders’ models. AI companies aren’t always issuing the debt themselves—that can fall to data center developers or special purpose vehicles, with firms like Blackstone and Apollo providing or arranging chip and other financing. And some of the biggest AI deals are using backstops from investment-grade companies like Nvidia or major cloud providers. Even so, commitments from AI customers often underpin much of the borrowing. And the users of the infrastructure will want to understand what they’re signing up for and their risks if a project runs into trouble. “Hiring of people within that business, responsible for the financing of compute, could prove to be an existential decision,” said Dan McCarthy, founder and CEO of One Search, an executive search firm focused on infrastructure finance whose recent clients include OpenAI. “You want someone who knows where all the pitfalls are, where all the bodies are buried in multibillion-dollar loans.” OpenAI, for its part, in July named Sven Semmelmann as head of compute capital markets. He previously led structured finance at Generate Capital, an investment firm that finances and owns infrastructure projects, and he has also held project finance roles at major banks. OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar, when announcing the hire on LinkedIn, said Semmelmann would oversee financing and partnerships to grow the company’s compute resources. Anthropic, meanwhile, has made several finance hires recently to work on capital markets and compute deals, and also has open positions posted including a capital markets infrastructure financing role. AI infrastructure upstarts are staffing up as well. Nscale, which launched in 2024 and is gearing up for a potential IPO , has been hiring across levels for capital markets and treasury as well as legal roles, calling for experience in areas like structured finance and private credit. SB Energy and Crusoe, which are developing major new data centers for OpenAI and other customers, are hiring across levels for jobs focused on project financings and other structured deals, recent postings show, while AI infrastructure startup Fluidstack is hiring a structured finance lead and a more junior counterpart. The good news for AI companies is that private credit and infrastructure teams, as well as investment banking teams focused on structured or project finance, had been growing even prior to the AI boom, providing a pool of skills that could translate into new twists on structured finance, like big graphics processing unit–backed deals. But that kind of finance talent doesn’t come cheap, especially for more senior people who have a track record of working on large transactions. And the normal tech tactic of dangling stock to lure talent won’t necessarily do the trick in all cases, especially for the most seasoned dealmakers and investors. Financiers would have to weigh a cash-heavy Wall Street pay package, albeit one that can depend heavily on how good bonus season is, against betting a portion of their pay on stock in a private or newly public company. Managing directors in investment banking can make north of $1 million in cash a year, with the biggest rainmakers making considerably more. The part of pay they get in stock at big public banks may vest over a few years but is generally easy to sell after that. For people at big infrastructure or private credit firms, senior employees may also receive carried interest, meaning a share of the profits on the funds or investments they work on, which can become worth millions over time. For instance, an investor at a top infrastructure firm may have several million dollars’ worth of carried interest tied up at their current firm they’d have to leave on the table. An AI company could try to make them whole with stock, which could be tantalizing to some, though others might not want to make a bet on equity in a young company. That might make the most experienced investors—those who’ve seen big infrastructure projects through over many years and know all the tricks of the trade—hard to pry away. New From Our Reporters Exclusive Anthropic’s In-House Payments Tech Push Could Chip Away at Stripe By Stephanie Palazzolo Exclusive China Curbs Humanoid IPOs After Unitree’s Volatile Debut By Jing Yang and Qianer Liu

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TechCrunch AI / 5:18 PM

What will Apple’s John Ternus era look like?

It’s officially the Ternus era at Apple. Tim Cook stepped down as CEO this week, handing the company to former hardware chief John Ternus, whose first memo promised a “huge launch next week” — timing that puts Apple’s next iPhone event on his desk before he’s even settled in. Cook isn’t going far, though: he’s staying on as Executive Chairman, focused on the kind of policy […]

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The Decoder / 2:25 PM

Nvidia buys the front door to open AI as closed labs increasingly design their own silicon

Nvidia plans to acquire Hugging Face for about $12.9 billion, securing the central platform for open AI models. More than 18 million developers and 200,000 companies use the hub. CEO Jensen Huang promises to keep the platform open and hardware-neutral, but the deal also hands him a powerful distribution channel for compute. The article Nvidia buys the front door to open AI as closed labs increasingly design their own silicon appeared first on The Decoder .

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The Verge AI / 12:12 PM

Nvidia is buying Hugging Face for almost $13 billion

Nvidia has agreed to buy Hugging Face for $12.93 billion, bringing one of the most popular hosting platforms for open-source AI models, datasets, and tools under the ownership of the world's biggest AI chipmaker. Hugging Face is an online platform founded in 2016 that gives AI developers a space to share their projects and data […]

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Bloomberg AI / 6:37 PM

Anthropic’s Compute Bet, Musk on AI, Apple’s New CEO | Bloomberg Tech 9/01/2026

Bloomberg’s Ed Ludlow breaks down Anthropic's $35 billion computing deal with Nvidia-backed cloud provider Lambda as the AI startup looks to expand its AI capacity. Plus, Elon Musk predicts AI will increase the global economy by up to 30%. And, John Ternus officially takes over as Apple CEO as the company gets ready for a new product unveil next week. (Source: Bloomberg)

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The Verge AI / 3:38 PM

Universal Music is launching an AI music platform with ElevenLabs

Universal Music Group is launching a new AI-powered platform that will allow users to draw from its catalog of licensed music to create song remixes, mashups, and new takes on tracks, according to an announcement on Thursday. The record label is developing the platform through a multiyear licensing agreement with ElevenLabs, a company that specializes […]

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