Nvidia surges 2.7% on Thinking Machines Lab investment
Multi-year partnership includes 1-gigawatt deployment of Vera Rubin AI systems, reinforcing chipmaker's infrastructure dominance
Nvidia shares climbed 2.7% in Tuesday trading, extending the semiconductor giant's recovery from a softer start to 2026 after the company announced a strategic investment in former OpenAI executive Mira Murati's artificial intelligence startup.
The multi-year partnership with Thinking Machines Lab includes a commitment to deploy at least one gigawatt of Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin AI accelerator systems, with installation scheduled to begin early next year. The deal, announced according to Nvidia's official blog, represents the chipmaker's latest move to cement its dominance in AI infrastructure beyond hardware supply.
"We are investing in Thinking Machines Lab and their world-class team to advance the frontier of AI," said Jensen Huang, Nvidia's founder and CEO. "The company is building powerful AI systems that are understandable, customizable, and collaborative, and will expand human capability."
The stock has gained 3.1% this week, bringing Nvidia's market capitalization to $4.32 trillion. Shares remain below their 52-week high of $212.18 reached in November 2025 but have more than doubled since the start of last year amid surging demand for AI training and inference hardware.
Murati, who previously served as chief technology officer at OpenAI before launching Thinking Machines Lab late last year, said the partnership will accelerate her company's ability to build "AI that people can shape and make their own." The startup focuses on developing customizable AI platforms that enable users to adapt models to specific applications.
The gigawatt-scale deployment of Vera Rubin systems marks one of the largest single infrastructure commitments in Nvidia's history. The Vera Rubin platform represents the company's next-generation AI accelerator architecture, succeeding the current Blackwell generation that has dominated data center AI deployments since 2024.
Wall Street analysts greeted the announcement positively. The stock currently carries an average price target of $265.18, representing roughly 43% upside from current levels, according to market data. Of 61 analysts covering Nvidia, 58 rate it a buy or strong buy, with just two holds and one sell.
The partnership arrives amid intensifying competition in the AI accelerator market. Advanced Micro Devices and Intel have both ramped up their AI chip offerings, while cloud providers including Amazon, Google and Microsoft continue developing their own custom silicon. Bloomberg reported that Nvidia's investment reflects a strategy to lock in key AI developers through strategic partnerships and infrastructure commitments.
Nvidia's quarterly earnings growth has accelerated to 95.6% year-over-year, with revenue up 73.2% over the same period. The company's gross profit margins have expanded to 71%, reflecting the premium pricing power of its AI accelerators amid constrained supply.
The Thinking Machines Lab deal follows Nvidia's broader strategy of investing in AI companies that can drive demand for its hardware. In recent quarters, the company has taken stakes in AI startups across healthcare, robotics and enterprise software, positioning itself as a full-stack AI infrastructure provider rather than just a chip supplier.
Vera Rubin systems are expected to deliver substantial performance improvements over current generation Blackwell chips, including enhanced memory bandwidth and computational density specifically optimized for large language model training and inference. The gigawatt deployment commitment suggests Thinking Machines Lab plans one of the most ambitious AI infrastructure buildouts among independent AI companies.
Investors have been closely watching Nvidia's progress on the Rubin architecture, which represents the company's answer to growing competitive pressure and the evolving computational requirements of next-generation AI models. The company is scheduled to provide detailed technical specifications at its GTC 2026 developer conference later this month.