The deal gives MediaTek access to Nvidia's data center infrastructure.
Nvidia continues to commit major dollars to AI companies, this time investing $3.5 billion in chipmaker MediaTek in return for licensing Nvidia technology.
Nvidia will purchase $3.5 billion of convertible bonds issued by chipmaker MediaTek, and in return MediaTek will adopt Nvidia’s NVLink Fusion technology, allowing customers to develop customized AI accelerators that can connect directly to Nvidia-based AI infrastructure.
The strategy reflects a significant shift in the AI chip market. Major cloud and AI companies—including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic—are increasingly developing custom silicon to optimize performance, power consumption, and costs while reducing their dependence on Nvidia GPUs.
Rather than fight the trend, Nvidia is positioning its technology as the infrastructure that can connect those custom processors to its broader AI computing ecosystem. At the center of the strategy is NVLink Fusion, Nvidia’s technology for connecting third-party processors to its GPUs. It’s built off NVLink, Nvidia’s high-speed interconnect for its own chips. Fusion lets non-Nvidia chips communicate with Nvidia chips.
MediaTek will use the platform to help customers develop application-specific AI chips that can operate alongside Nvidia processors in large-scale AI systems. The approach allows customers to build specialized accelerators for particular workloads while continuing to use Nvidia’s networking, interconnect, and rack-scale technologies.
Nvidia and MediaTek are collaborating in three major areas:
- AI infrastructure: MediaTek will work with Nvidia’s NVLink Fusion ecosystem to enable customers to develop custom AI infrastructure designed to integrate with Nvidia rack-scale systems and AI factories.
- Local AI computing: The companies will continue to collaborate on multiple generations of Nvidia RTX Spark and DGX Spark PC chips, powering consumer PCs, AI developer supercomputers, and enterprise-class workstations, that integrate Nvidia GPUs with MediaTek SoCs.
- Automotive: MediaTek and Nvidia will continue developing platforms for AI-powered, software-defined vehicles in the era of physical AI.
“MediaTek is one of the world’s great semiconductor companies, with exceptional expertise in system-on-chip design, connectivity, leading performance and power efficiency,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, in a statement. “Together, we’re building platforms that bring Nvidia accelerated computing to new markets and give customers the freedom to create differentiated AI systems at enormous scale.”
NVLink is a high-performance interface, but this move also helps lock in customers to the Nvidia platform, since NVLink Fusion is not about to hook up to AMD processors.
For MediaTek, the Nvidia investment provides a big pile of cash and access to Nvidia’s infrastructure as it attempts to establish itself as a major supplier of custom data center silicon.
MediaTek’s access to NVLink Fusion could make its custom-chip business more attractive to hyperscalers and AI companies that want proprietary processors without abandoning Nvidia-based infrastructure.
