Key Points
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Nvidia has made a lot of money from its Intel investment.
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The company also bought into xAI, which turned into a SpaceX holding.
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CoreWeave has been backed by Nvidia for a long time.
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Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) is the world’s largest company and produces a vast number of chips to supply huge data centers, but it’s also an active investor. The company has put billions into a handful of companies, and three stocks stand out as huge investments: Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Space Exploration Technologies (NASDAQ: SPCX), and CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV).
Combined, these three consist of about $55 billion in invested capital, making them fairly sizable bets. But why is Nvidia doing so? Let’s take a look.
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1. Intel
Nvidia first invested in Intel last year, not long after the U.S. government took a position in the stock as well. The reason for Nvidia was fairly simple: It wanted to improve its game with central processing units (CPUs).
The company’s graphics processing units (GPUs) are widely considered the best available, but it doesn’t have nearly the same presence in the CPU market, which is important for how data centers process AI inference workloads. With Nvidia and Intel partnering to produce CPUs, it makes a lot of sense for the former to invest in it to ensure that it benefits in multiple ways, especially because the latter’s stock was beaten down at that time.
Another reason Nvidia invested in Intel was to ensure that it had funds necessary to keep its U.S. chip foundry running. Intel’s foundry business was struggling and needed some serious help to stay alive. If the company can improve its foundry business and get it back on the same level as its competition, that bodes well for Nvidia because it would give it a second source of chip production outside of Taiwan Semiconductor.
Intel is Nvidia’s largest position for a reason, and with the stock rallying throughout 2026, this looks like a genius move so far.
2. SpaceX
Nvidia didn’t invest directly in Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX for short) during its initial public offering. Instead, it put $10 billion into xAI at the start of the year during a funding round. Then, xAI was acquired by SpaceX not long after that, but before going public. So, once it had its IPO, Nvidia automatically became an investor in it, although it may not be an active one.
We’ll have to see if Nvidia holds on to its SpaceX shares or if it dumps them once the lockup period ends. Regardless of what happens, SpaceX and Nvidia will retain a close relationship, since SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has praised Nvidia’s products and has chosen to exclusively use its new Vera Rubin chips because he believes that it’s the best architecture available.
SpaceX, via xAI, and Nvidia will be closely tied together in the future. If Nvidia likes what it sees, more investment could follow.
3. CoreWeave
Last is CoreWeave, which is a much smaller investment than Intel or SpaceX, totaling less than $5 billion. However, it is a major client of Nvidia’s, and this is what makes it most intriguing.
It is a neocloud company, which means it provides AI-focused cloud computing services to its clients. This requires a lot of computing power, and with Nvidia clearly recognizing that CoreWeave was buying plenty of chips, it wanted a piece of that growth, so it bought into it. This is the kind of move that investors should pay the most attention to, since Nvidia likely has information that the average investor doesn’t have about long-term CoreWeave demand.
Nvidia knows that if it sells lots of semiconductors to CoreWeave, these will eventually become income-producing assets and boost its financial status, leading to a soaring stock price. So it’s an active investor to ensure that the neocloud provider has the funds to build out its business. With this fairly large chunk of change into CoreWeave, I think it’s an interesting stock to consider buying as well, since Nvidia’s backing is a huge factor.
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Keithen Drury has positions in Nvidia and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Intel, Nvidia, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
