Nvidia is investing $3.5 billion in MediaTek, buying convertible bonds in what Bloomberg called its largest direct investment yet outside the United States. The companies said Monday that MediaTek will adopt Nvidia’s NVLink Fusion platform so custom chips for AI companies and hyperscalers can plug into Nvidia-based data centers, TechCrunch and Nvidia’s newsroom reported.
The deal comes as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and other big buyers build their own accelerators to ease reliance on Nvidia GPUs. Working with MediaTek gives Nvidia a route into those projects rather than leaving custom silicon as a separate ecosystem, TechCrunch reported. NVLink Fusion is meant to let non-Nvidia chips communicate quickly inside Nvidia rack-scale systems.
MediaTek brings an established chip-design business and a growing data-center push. The company said in June that its custom data-center ASIC operations should generate $2 billion in revenue in 2026, according to TechCrunch. ASICs are tuned for narrower jobs than general-purpose processors and can be shaped around a customer’s AI workloads.
MediaTek shares closed about 10 percent higher Tuesday after the announcement, CNBC reported, adding fuel to a near 200 percent rally in the Taiwanese firm’s shares this year. The companies also plan to keep collaborating on local AI computing for PCs and on automotive platforms.
The investment does not mean hyperscalers are abandoning in-house chip programs. It shows Nvidia adapting to them. By putting its interconnect and rack-scale stack inside MediaTek’s custom-chip operation, Nvidia is positioning itself to supply the connective tissue around AI silicon that does not carry the familiar Nvidia GPU label.