Sam Altman on Nvidia’s $100B investment: A “small dent” that delivers millions, not billions, of GPUs required for superintelligence

Yesterday, NVIDIA announced a $100 billion investment in OpenAI to build a 10-gigawatt AI infrastructure — the equivalent of millions of GPUs, starting in 2026. It’s one of the largest bets ever placed on artificial intelligence, meant to fuel Sam Altman’s vision of massive data centers capable of running the next wave of AI models. Now, it turns out that even $100 billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions of GPUs OpenAI says will be required to reach superintelligence.

In a CNBC interview, OpenAI president Greg Brockman and CEO Sam Altman called the deal a critical step, but one that still falls far short of what’s coming. Brockman didn’t mince words: “$100 billion is a small dent in it.” He pointed out that the project alone equals four to five million GPUs, about what NVIDIA ships in an entire year, but that the industry is still three orders of magnitude away from what’s needed.

Nvidia’s $100B OpenAI Deal a “Small Dent”: Not Enough for Billions of GPUs Needed for Superintelligence

“The scale of this project—you know, $100 billion is a small dent in it. And the numbers are also like, they’re missing a story. What this amount of infrastructure is capable of doing: 10 gigawatts of compute. Again, easy to throw around numbers like that, but the amount of work it takes to build out the size [and] scale [of] these multi-square-mile gigantic things, and [the] complexity at every level [of the] supply chain. And then what that amount of brain power—which does not exist today—can do. Already today, what it will do as the models get better like this,” Altman said.

The gap is staggering. To build what Altman described as “super-brains” — AI agents that can work on projects, organize calendars, and act as proactive digital assistants for every individual — the requirement moves from millions to billions of GPUs. “Every person will have their own dedicated GPU,” Brockman said, sketching a future where compute becomes as personal and essential as electricity.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman & President Greg Brockman on the 10 GW deal with Nvidia:

100 billion is still small, that’s only the scale of million of GPUs; we’re talking about billions.

We’re three orders of magnitude away from where we need to be. pic.twitter.com/1TFl2ADWUq

— The AI Investor (@The_AI_Investor) September 23, 2025

The numbers frame a bigger story: today’s AI runs on reactive models like ChatGPT that answer questions. Tomorrow’s systems will need the capacity to think and act autonomously at scale, a shift that demands infrastructure on a level comparable to national utilities. “We’re doing our best to provide compute availability, but we’re heading to a world where the economy is powered by compute, and it’s going to be a compute-scarce one,” Altman added.

Commenting on the amount of GPUs required for OpenAI superintelligence project, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang said:

“So, Sam, remember? Yeah, this new project that we’re talking about: 10 gigawatts, or roughly 4 million [to] 5 million GPUs. That [is] approximately, in one project, what we shipped all year this year? Okay. And twice as much as last year, twice as much [as] the year before. So [that] kind of puts it in perspective. This is a giant [endeavor].”

What makes the partnership striking isn’t just the scale of NVIDIA’s checkbook but the message it sends. Even as the market treats $100 billion as astronomical, the people building AI superintelligence see it as table stakes. Multi-square-mile data centers, sprawling supply chains, and exponential demand for chips aren’t a distant projection — they’re already shaping today’s buildout.

The deal lands as regulators grow uneasy about NVIDIA’s dominance and the potential concentration of AI resources in the hands of a few players. But for OpenAI, the calculation is simple: the path to superintelligence is paved with GPUs, and right now, there aren’t nearly enough to go around.

Watch the full interview below:

From NVIDIA HQ:

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (@sama) and President Greg Brockman (@gdb) joined NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang on @CNBC to discuss today’s historic new partnership shaping the next era of AI.

Watch the full interview below. pic.twitter.com/BDXhic5To3

— NVIDIA Newsroom (@nvidianewsroom) September 22, 2025