Nvidia Stock Draws More Attention After Report of $900M Deal To Scoop Up Enfabrica Talent, Tech

Nvidia reportedly spent $900 million in cash and stock to hire staff at AI chip startup Enfabrica, including its CEO, Rochan Sankar, and license its technology, according to a CNBC report published late Thursday.

The deal closed last week, and Sankar has joined Nvidia, according to the report, which cited unnamed sources.

Founded in 2019, Silicon Valley-based Enfabrica offers a chip-and-software system that interconnects GPUs, CPUs, and accelerators more efficiently, improving the performance of the clusters and saving costs.

The startup claims that its technologies can string together about 100,000 AI computing chips before the network starts to bog down.

Founded by veterans from Broadcom and Alphabet, Enfabrica has raised $260 million in venture capital to date. Nvidia had invested in the company in 2023; other investors include Atreides Management, Arm, Samsung, and Cisco.

The development comes close on the heels of Nvidia's partnership with Intel. The companies said Thursday that Nvidia would invest $5 billion in Intel and collaborate to create AI systems for data centers that combine Intel's x86-based central processors with Nvidia's graphics processors and networking. 

The deal is seen as a major boost for the struggling Intel, with the company's shares jumping nearly 23% on Thursday after the partnership news.

Nvidia, whose shares gained 3.5% on Thursday but are still down for the week, faces another concern: China has reportedly asked its tech companies to halt purchases of a second Nvidia AI chip it designed specifically for the Chinese market. 

The reported ban now covers the RTX Pro 6000D and H20 systems; Nvidia, meanwhile, is barred by the U.S. from selling its other top-of-the-line AI chips in China.

On Stocktwits, the retail sentiment for NVDA was 'neutral' as of late Thursday.

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