英伟达疯狂投资，构建AI帝国

Core Insights - Nvidia has significantly benefited from the AI revolution, with substantial increases in revenue, profitability, and cash reserves since the launch of ChatGPT over two years ago [1] - The company has ramped up its investments in AI startups, participating in 49 funding rounds in 2024, a notable increase from 34 rounds in 2023 and only 38 rounds in the previous four years combined [1] - Nvidia's corporate investment strategy aims to support startups that are considered "game changers and market creators" to expand the AI ecosystem [1] Investment Highlights - Nvidia invested $100 million in OpenAI's $6.6 billion funding round, valuing the company at $157 billion [3] - The company participated in a $6 billion funding round for Elon Musk's xAI, indicating a willingness to invest in direct competitors of OpenAI [3] - Nvidia was one of the lead investors in Inflection's $1.3 billion funding round, although the company's future prospects have become uncertain after Microsoft acquired its technology [4] - In May 2024, Nvidia invested $1 billion in Scale AI, which provides data labeling services for training AI models, raising the company's valuation to nearly $14 billion [5] Notable Funding Rounds - Nvidia participated in a $686 million funding round for Crusoe, a startup building data centers for major tech companies [7] - The company invested $640 million in Mistral AI, a developer of large language models, during its second funding round [7] - Nvidia's investment in Lambda, an AI cloud provider, amounted to $480 million, raising the company's valuation to $2.5 billion [8] - Nvidia also invested in several other startups, including $500 million in Cohere and $500 million in Perplexity, with valuations of $5 billion and $9 billion respectively [8][9] Summary of Investments - Nvidia's investment strategy has led to significant participation in high-value funding rounds, with a focus on AI and technology startups [1][5][7] - The company has shown a trend of increasing its investment amounts and the number of rounds participated in, reflecting its commitment to the AI sector [1][2] - The investments span various applications, including autonomous driving, AI model training, and cloud computing, indicating a broad interest in the AI ecosystem [5][8][9]