Nvidia is partnering with major financial firms including Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to create $500 billion in financing to turn compute into an investable asset class. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called it "the first time technology chips have become an investable asset class," comparing it to the early mortgage-backed securities market. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink echoed this framing, describing it as "a next future for financial engineering."
This positioning appears to contradict Huang's own previous statements. When Blackwell chips began shipping, Huang reportedly said "you couldn't give Hoppers away" and that "there are circumstances where Hopper is fine. Not many." Now, Huang describes chips as "revenue-generating assets" that are "long-lived, fungible, and flexible."
Despite the apparent contradiction, rental prices for older chips have indeed been rising, with Silicon Data projecting continued increases through 2028. However, experts including former hedge fund manager Mark Rubinstein note risks: mortgage-backed securities failed when mortgages were overproduced, and potential threats include data center saturation, Chinese open-source models requiring less compute, and questions about whether frontier AI labs can sustain demand.