Nasdaq-listed chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA), the bellwether for everything AI, is pushing Wall Street banks to treat its AI computing power like commercial real estate, toll roads or power plants: as an investable infrastructure asset.
Nvidia said Monday it has signed memorandums of understanding with six Wall Street heavyweights – Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, BlackRock, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs and KKR – to set up financing platforms that could eventually tap more than $500 billion in third‑party capital.
The goal, according to the chipmaker, is to treat AI compute as a bankable infrastructure asset rather than a pure tech expense, encouraging customers to build out AI data centres and lock in demand for Nvidia’s hardware.
“This is really the first time that technology chips have become an investable asset class. These are revenue-generating assets now. They’re productive, they’re long-lived, they’re fungible, they’re flexible,” Jensen Huang, NVIDIA’s founder and CEO, said.
“Fundamentally, what’s different about this industry and this way of doing computing is that the computer is now part of the infrastructure, like electricity, like the internet, and so you have to think about it like it’s infrastructure,” he added.
What’s AI compute #
AI compute refers to the raw processing power used to train and run artificial intelligence models. Specialized chips, mostly Nvidia's high-end GPUs, primarily do that work and make up the large data centers that Nvidia calls "AI factories."
These factories consume electricity and data to generate useful intelligent systems, such as those that power chatbots, generate images and videos, help design new drugs, drive robots, and run countless other applications. The more advanced the AI, the more of this specialized computing power it needs.
The change that Nvidia seeks #
As of today, most companies view buying or renting computing power as a straightforward technology expense that sits on the balance sheet and loses value quickly as newer chips arrive. (Imagine your iphone getting outdated with newer versions arriving in the market)
But, according to Nvidia, this view is outdated, because its systems are widely adopted and can be used by several customers, generating an income stream over years. Hence, the AI factory should be treated as a long-term investable asset.
Here's an example of the change Nvidia is pushing for.
Let’s say a company needs powerful AI chips right now. It will most likely spend millions of dollars of its own cash or take out a regular business loan from a bank to buy a large cluster of Nvidia GPUs. This expense now goes on the balance sheet as equipment, which accountants will depreciate over a few years as newer models arrive. The bet is that before these chips lose most of their value, the AI product built with them will generate enough revenue to more than offset the cost.