Nvidia is investing $3.5 billion in Taiwanese chipmaker MediaTek as the two companies expand their partnership around custom AI chips and data center infrastructure.
Under the deal, MediaTek will adopt Nvidia technology that will allow custom chips designed for AI companies and hyperscalers to connect directly to Nvidia-based data center systems.
The move comes as companies including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic increasingly invest in custom chips to reduce their dependence on Nvidia GPUs.
Rather than compete against every custom chip, Nvidia is positioning its infrastructure as the platform those processors can still use.
MediaTek Gets Access to NVLink Fusion
MediaTek will gain access to Nvidia’s NVLink Fusion ecosystem, including NVLink technology.
NVLink allows different chips, including non-Nvidia processors, to communicate with each other at high speeds inside AI data centers.
This means MediaTek can continue designing custom chips for cloud companies and AI labs while integrating them with Nvidia’s rack-scale infrastructure, scale-up and scale-out technologies.
Nvidia senior director Dion Harris said the company now sees itself as an AI infrastructure provider rather than only a chipmaker.
He said MediaTek’s customers will be able to deploy their custom chips alongside Nvidia hardware using the same standardized infrastructure.
Nvidia Increasing Reach Into Custom Silicon
The investment follows a similar partnership with Amazon Web Services.
AWS recently announced plans to deploy an additional 2 million Nvidia GPUs and integrate NVLink Fusion into its infrastructure, although Nvidia did not make a direct investment in Amazon as part of that deal.
MediaTek has been gradually expanding its custom data center ASIC business.
The company said in June that it expects the business to generate $2 billion in revenue in 2026 and plans to target a larger share of the custom AI chip market in the coming years.
MediaTek has not publicly disclosed which customers use its custom AI chips.
Partnership Extends Beyond Data Centers
Nvidia and MediaTek will also continue working together outside large AI data centers.
The companies already collaborate on DGX Spark, Nvidia’s compact desktop AI system aimed at developers.
They are also extending that work through RTX Spark, which aims to bring Nvidia’s AI technology into consumer AI PCs.
The partnership also covers automotive technology.
MediaTek’s automotive platforms use Nvidia RTX graphics for intelligent vehicle cockpits and work alongside Nvidia Drive AGX for autonomous driving workloads.
The two companies said they will continue developing platforms for AI-powered, software-defined vehicles.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said AI is changing computing across data centers, PCs and cars, and that the expanded partnership will allow customers to build customized AI systems while still using Nvidia’s accelerated computing infrastructure.
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