Nvidia Dives into $6 Billion Deal with Poolside for Open-Weight AI Ambitions
Nvidia is making a significant push into AI models with a multibillion-dollar deal to develop an open-weight system. The company 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.
This 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. As part of this effort, Nvidia launched its Nemotron Coalition in March, bringing together open-model developers to share expertise, data, and computing resources.
Nvidia's move is seen as a challenge to US AI leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic, as well as Chinese open-model developers like DeepSeek and Moonshot AI's Kimi. The company aims to advance AGI as an open technology rather than one 'controlled by few,' according to Poolside's shareholder letter.
Poolside will remain independent, with founders Eiso Kant and Jason Warner staying outside Nvidia while continuing unspecified research work.