Nvidia is investing US$3.5-billion in Taiwan’s MediaTek, the latest deal to widen the American chip maker’s financial ties across the AI industry.
This week’s move follows Nvidia’s guarantee of up to $105-billion earlier this month for OpenAI’s Ohio data centre lease, and could intensify scrutiny of arrangements in which the chipmaker funds companies that help drive demand for its AI products.
Nvidia’s investment is part of MediaTek’s record $3.9-billion overseas convertible bond offering, meaning it has taken up about 90% of the issue. The Taiwanese chip maker said Alphabet, a key AI infrastructure partner, also took part but did not disclose the size of its investment. It is Nvidia’s largest direct investment outside the US.
“This is not circular because obviously they do their own business and we do our own business,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg TV.
As part of Monday’s deal, MediaTek will let customers use Nvidia’s technology to design their own AI chips that connect directly to Nvidia’s larger computing systems.
The technology, called NVLink Fusion, gives chip makers ready-made connectors and specialised memory so custom AI chips can plug into Nvidia’s data centre systems. It saves customers time and engineering costs, letting them focus on their own chip designs rather than building connections to Nvidia’s systems from scratch.
“Nvidia is financing MediaTek so MediaTek can develop products that extend Nvidia’s architecture,” said Joe Tigay, portfolio manager of the Rational Equity Armor Fund. “That makes it less circular than Nvidia financing a customer – but it is still Nvidia using its balance sheet to accelerate ecosystem growth.”
Beyond smartphones
The Santa Clara, California-based chip giant and MediaTek will also keep working together on chips for PCs and technology for AI-powered vehicles. The latest deal builds on a broader relationship. In June the companies teamed up to launch the RTX Spark PC chip, aiming to bring AI features directly to laptops and desktops.
Nvidia’s investment comes days after it provided a rare long-term outlook of 70% revenue growth for next year, with Huang saying AI has reached its inflection point and is doing useful work. Ahead of those results, traders had braced for a swing of as much as R4.5-trillion in the company’s market value.
MediaTek has been pushing beyond smartphones into AI chips for data centres, backed by a $5-billion financing plan approved in July. Its shares rose about 10% in Taipei on Tuesday, extending a rally of close to 200% this year. — Anhata Rooprai, © 2026 Reuters
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