Nvidia's Reported $5 Billion SSI Investment Fails To Lift NVDA Stock Amid Chip Stocks Selloff

• SSI will also gain access to Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin platform.
• The investment adds to Nvidia's growing network of AI startups that both receive funding from and purchase computing infrastructure from the company.
• Broader semiconductor weakness and China's progress in domestic chipmaking weighed on Nvidia shares in midday trade.

Shares of Nvidia (NVDA) fell sharply in midday trading Monday, even after a report said the chipmaker had committed $5 billion to Safe Superintelligence (SSI), the artificial intelligence startup founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever. 

NVDA’s stock fell as much as 5.3% amid broader weakness in the market and was among the top trending tickers on Stocktwits at the time of writing. 

According to a Bloomberg report, Nvidia committed $5 billion to Safe Superintelligence Inc. (SSI), marking one of the chipmaker's largest funding deals of the AI boom. Beyond the funding, SSI will also receive access to Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin AI platform, which the companies said could expand the startup's computing capacity by an order of magnitude.

"We have research that is worthy of scaling up, and having access to a big NVIDIA computer will let us do so," SSI co-founder and chief executive Ilya Sutskever said.

Nvidia Expands Its AI Investment Strategy

The reported SSI investment adds to Nvidia’s growing portfolio of AI startup investments, including bets across the broader AI stack such as OpenAI, Nebius (NBIS), CoreWeave (CRWV), IREN (IREN), and other companies building the infrastructure that powers large-scale model training and deployment. Many of these firms also rely on Nvidia’s chips, networking, and compute platforms.

That strategy has increasingly drawn scrutiny from some market observers, including Michael Burry, who state that it creates a tightly interconnected ecosystem in which Nvidia finances companies that subsequently become major customers for its hardware.

Semiconductor Sector Faces Fresh Pressure

Monday's decline in Nvidia shares came amid renewed pressure across the semiconductor sector. According to The Information, China has begun producing domestically developed 193-nanometer immersion DUV lithography systems, with the first machines expected to ship this year to SMIC, Hua Hong, and CXMT. 

Meanwhile, memory manufacturer CXMT made its stock market debut, with shares reportedly surging more than fivefold, making it the most valuable newly listed company in mainland China.

How Is Retail Feeling About NVDA Stock?

Retail traders, however, questioned whether Monday's semiconductor selloff was overdone. Some Stocktwits users stated that the market was reacting too aggressively to the China DUV headlines, noting that domestic production remains limited and still trails ASML's leading-edge lithography technology.

Investors are also bracing for a fresh batch of U.S. tech earnings this week, including four of the Magnificent Seven, with concerns about the sustainability of AI spending resurfacing across markets. Microsoft (MSFT) and Meta (META) are scheduled to report on Wednesday, followed by Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) on Thursday.

Read also: CRWV, NBIS Stocks Climb – Nvidia’s $250B OpenAI Guarantee Is A ‘Constructive’ Signal, Says Analyst

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