NVIDIA AI Factory Computing Emerges as an Investable Asset Class

NVIDIA is partnering with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR to create independent financial platforms supporting AI infrastructure development. These platforms aim to mobilize over $500 billion in third-party capital in the long term.

An AI factory is not just a GPU but a comprehensive platform including accelerated computing, networking, system software, AI frameworks, and a developer ecosystem. It handles diverse models and workloads such as language, vision, speech, biology, physical AI, and robotics, allowing reuse by multiple customers, clouds, and operators, thereby enhancing asset liquidity and residual value.

• CUDA software updates continuously improve the performance and efficiency of existing infrastructure
• A single AI factory supports various customers and workloads, resulting in high utilization
• Based on standard architectures used by global clouds, system manufacturers, and enterprises
• Capable of being reallocated to different customers, clouds, and operators in response to demand changes

NVIDIA explained that the A100, launched in 2020, is still being used for AI training, fine-tuning, inference, and high-performance computing six years later, with its economic life approaching 10 years. GPU rental prices have also risen, with the 1-year contract price for H100 increasing from approximately $1.70 per GPU-hour in October 2025 to about $2.35 in March 2026, while B200 cloud rates are reported at approximately $5.30–$7.05.

Financial institutions independently assess each opportunity's customers, demand, utilization, cash flow, and residual value. The $500 billion figure refers to the total third-party capital the platforms aim to mobilize in the long term, rather than NVIDIA's revenue, a single fund, or commitments to specific customers.