Nvidia is investing $3.5 billion in Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek and granting access to its NVLink Fusion ecosystem, the companies said. Under the agreement, MediaTek will use Nvidia technology to design custom chips for AI companies and hyperscalers that can communicate with existing Nvidia-based data center infrastructure.
Deal structure and technical integration
The partnership gives MediaTek access to NVLink, the interconnect technology that enables fast communication between different chips, including non‑Nvidia silicon. Nvidia described the move as enabling custom silicon to operate “right alongside” Nvidia hardware on a common rack-scale architecture.
Dion Harris, Nvidia’s senior director of HPC and AI hyperscaler infrastructure solutions, said the arrangement lets MediaTek’s customers “standardize on the rack-scale infrastructure across their AI factories” and deploy their custom chips on the same platform.
Market context and product collaborations
The deal arrives as cloud providers and AI labs invest in bespoke chips to reduce dependence on GPUs from a single vendor. Nvidia has pursued similar partnerships; the company recently announced a collaboration with Amazon Web Services that includes deploying an additional 2 million Nvidia GPUs and integrating NVLink Fusion, according to Nvidia.
MediaTek has been building a custom data center ASIC business and said in June that it expects that segment to generate $2 billion in revenue in 2026. The companies also plan continued work on developer and consumer AI systems: MediaTek will collaborate on DGX Spark and Nvidia’s RTX Spark, and the firms will advance platforms for AI‑powered, software‑defined vehicles.
Automotive work will maintain existing integrations: MediaTek’s auto platforms rely on Nvidia RTX graphics for intelligent cockpits and pair with Nvidia Drive AGX for autonomous driving workloads. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and CEO, said the collaboration is intended to “bring NVIDIA accelerated computing to new markets” and enable customers to build differentiated AI systems at scale.
The agreement formally grants MediaTek NVLink Fusion access and extends cooperation on DGX Spark, RTX Spark, and automotive platforms, while preserving Nvidia’s role in data center infrastructure.
Original source: TechCrunch AI