Nvidia just delivered a reality check that's rattling the AI world. Two months after CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI's Sam Altman announced their historic $100 billion partnership, the chip giant quietly buried a disclaimer in its quarterly filing - there's 'no assurance' the deal will actually happen. The admission reveals how even the biggest AI announcements can be more marketing theater than binding contracts.
The September announcement felt like a done deal. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and OpenAI chief Sam Altman stood together in San Jose, unveiling what seemed like the AI industry's biggest partnership yet - a $100 billion investment to power OpenAI's next-generation data centers starting in 2026.
But Nvidia's quarterly SEC filing Wednesday delivered an uncomfortable truth buried in the risk factors section: "There is no assurance that we will enter into definitive agreements with respect to the OpenAI opportunity or other potential investments, or that any investment will be completed on expected terms."
The disclaimer exposes a critical gap between AI industry announcements and actual signed contracts. While Huang called OpenAI a "once-in-a-generation company" during this week's earnings call, the legal reality is far murkier.
Nvidia has been throwing cash around like confetti lately, committing $5 billion to Intel this quarter and up to $10 billion to Anthropic just this week. Each deal comes with similar hedging language - investments that might not materialize "on expected terms, if at all."
The OpenAI situation is particularly complex because of the sheer scale involved. According to CNBC sources, an initial $10 billion would flow to help OpenAI deploy its first gigawatt of computing capacity, with the remaining $90 billion tied to hitting specific infrastructure milestones.
Meanwhile, OpenAI isn't sitting idle waiting for Nvidia's lawyers to finish their paperwork. The ChatGPT maker just inked a binding deal with AMD to deploy 6 gigawatts of Instinct GPUs starting next year - complete with warrants for up to 160 million AMD shares tied to deployment volumes.
The AMD agreement has something Nvidia's lacks: actual signatures. CFO Jean Hu and OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar signed their pact on October 5th, creating a legally binding commitment that shows how real AI partnerships actually get done.
