“Nvidia is an AI infrastructure company,” Dion Harris, Nvidia’s senior director of HPC and AI hyperscaler infrastructure solutions, said Monday during a call with reporters. “We expanded beyond pure computing chips years ago.”
The investment comes as companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic put more resources into developing their own processors. That shift could reduce their dependence on Nvidia GPUs, but Nvidia is positioning itself to remain part of the underlying infrastructure even when customers choose custom chips.
By opening NVLink Fusion to MediaTek, Nvidia can support processors built outside its own GPU portfolio while keeping those chips connected to its broader rack-scale architecture and data center ecosystem. “Basically, every cloud, every model builder is deploying our platform in some shape, form, or fashion,” Harris said. “So by MediaTek being able to offer this extension to its customers, it allows them to standardize on the rack-scale infrastructure across their AI factories… and also deploy their custom chips right alongside those using the same standard platform.”
“This is really about opening up this ecosystem to the entire MediaTek customer base,” he added.
MediaTek has been expanding its custom data center ASIC business and said in June that it expects the operation to generate $2 billion in revenue in 2026. The company has not disclosed which customers are using its custom AI chips.
The Nvidia investment gives MediaTek another path to compete for that work while tying those processors more closely to Nvidia’s infrastructure. The companies are also extending their relationship beyond data centers. MediaTek will continue working with Nvidia on DGX Spark, Nvidia’s compact desktop AI system aimed at developers. Their collaboration is also expanding through RTX Spark, which brings Nvidia AI technology into consumer PCs.
The two companies are continuing joint work in automotive computing as well. MediaTek’s vehicle platforms use Nvidia RTX graphics for intelligent cockpits and operate alongside Nvidia Drive AGX, which handles autonomous-driving workloads.
Their partnership will also cover platforms for AI-powered, software-defined vehicles. “AI is transforming every computing platform — from the world’s largest AI factories to the PC and the car,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said 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.”
The MediaTek deal follows another Nvidia infrastructure partnership announced last week with Amazon Web Services. AWS plans to deploy an additional 2 million Nvidia GPUs and integrate NVLink Fusion into its infrastructure, although that agreement did not include a direct Nvidia investment.
For Nvidia, the MediaTek investment reflects an effort to stay embedded in AI infrastructure even as more customers pursue their own processors. Rather than requiring every workload to run exclusively on Nvidia chips, the company is making its networking and rack-scale technology available to custom silicon that can operate alongside them.
This analysis is based on reporting from TechCrunch.
Image courtesy of TechCrunch.
This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.
