Nvidia makes a game-changing $900 million investment to hire Enfabrica CEO Rochan Sankar and license the startup’s cutting-edge AI technology
$900 million investmentIn a stunning move that underscores its aggressive push into AI infrastructure, Nvidia has reportedly spent over $900 million to onboard Enfabrica CEO Rochan Sankar along with other key employees from the AI startup. The deal also includes licensing Enfabrica’s proprietary technology, according to sources cited by CNBC.
This strategic investment signals Nvidia’s intent to dominate the next wave of AI hardware innovation, particularly in networking and data center acceleration—areas where Enfabrica has been making waves.
Why This Matters
- Talent Acquisition: Rochan Sankar, a veteran in chip architecture and networking, brings deep expertise to Nvidia’s AI roadmap.
- Tech Licensing: Enfabrica’s technology is designed to reduce bottlenecks in AI data flow, making it a valuable asset for Nvidia’s data center ambitions.
- Market Impact: This move could reshape competition in the AI infrastructure space, especially as Nvidia continues to scale its dominance in GPU and networking solutions.
Through agreements that resemble acquisitions, tech behemoths Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have all heavily invested in hiring elite AI talent. Because of the agreements, the companies are able to hire outstanding researchers and engineers without having to worry about the regulatory complexities associated with acquisitions.
The largest of these deals occurred in June, when Meta acquired a 49% share in Scale AI and spent $14.3 billion on Alexandr Wang and other founders. A month later, Google revealed that it had reached a $2.4 billion deal, including license costs, to hire Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of Windsurf, a business that specializes in artificial intelligence code, along with other research and development staff.
Google struck a similar agreement to hire Character’s founders last year.AI. Amazon did the same for Adept, while Microsoft did the same for Inflection.
Nvidia hasn’t been a major acquirer, while being a major investor in AI infrastructure and technologies. In 2019, the business announced a $6.9 billion acquisition of Israeli chip designer Melanox, its sole deal worth more than $1 billion. Through the transaction, Nvidia got networking technology that powers a large portion of its current Blackwell product lineup.
Nvidia attempted to purchase Arm, a semiconductor design business, but the deal fell through in 2022 as a result of regulatory pressure. The Israeli startup Run:ai, whose technology assists software developers in optimizing their infrastructure for artificial intelligence, was acquired by Nvidia for $700 million in the last year.
Nvidia revealed one of its largest investments to date on Thursday. The chipmaker declared that it has acquired a $5 billion interest in Intel and that the two businesses will work together to develop AI chips. Nvidia also announced this week that it has invested about $700 million in Nscale, a data center startup in the United Kingdom.
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