Nvidia Paying 20b For Groq S Assets Cnbc Says Msn

Nvidia has agreed to buy assets from Groq, a designer of high-performance artificial intelligence accelerator chips, for $20 billion in cash, according to Alex Davis, CEO of Disruptive, which led the startup's latest financing... Davis, whose firm has invested more than half a billion dollars in Groq since the company was founded in 2016, said the deal came together quickly. Groq raised $750 million at a valuation of about $6.9 billion three months ago. Investors in the round included Blackrock and Neuberger Berman, as well as Samsung, Cisco, Altimeter and 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner. Groq said in a blog post Wednesday that it's "entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia for Groq's inference technology," without disclosing a price.

With the deal, Groq founder and CEO Jonathan Ross along with Sunny Madra, the company's president, and other senior leaders "will join Nvidia to help advance and scale the licensed technology," the post said. Groq added that it will continue as an "independent company," led by finance chief Simon Edwards as CEO. Colette Kress, Nvidia's CFO, declined comment on the transaction. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said the deal would strengthen the company’s AI offerings. (Photo: Reuters) Don't miss the most important news and views of the day.

Get them on our Telegram channel First Published: Dec 25 2025 | 11:46 AM IST Nvidia has agreed to its biggest deal on record, acquiring rival chipmaker Groq's inference technology assets for $20 billion, per a CNBC report. Groq founder and CEO Jonathan Ross, as well as other company leaders, will join Nvidia to scale up the tech. In a blog post, Groq described the deal as a "non-exclusive licensing agreement" with Nvidia, and added that Groq will continue operating separately under CFO-turned-CEO Simon Edwards. In an email to staff obtained by CNBC, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the deal will expand its real-time capabilities.

Today Groq entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia for Groq’s inference technology. Along with other members of the Groq team, I’ll be joining Nvidia to help integrate the licensed technology. GroqCloud will continue to operate without interruption. Learn more here: https://lnkd.in/gMDW8QEG NVIDIA has made its largest acquisition ever, buying assets from nine-year-old AI chip startup Groq for roughly $20 billion. Groq was just valued at $6.9 billion in a $750 million capital raise three months ago.

Groq founder and CEO Jonathan Ross will join Nvidia. While at Google, Ross designed the custom chips that the tech giant would go on to train its AI models on. I caught up with Ross recently on my Opening Bid Unfiltered podcast to go inside the work Groq is doing – which explains the hefty $20 billion price tag for the company. 📈 Full watch on Yahoo Finance: https://lnkd.in/eSf5pc5e 🎙️ Spotify: https://lnkd.in/eAMwKFqY 🎧 Apple: https://lnkd.in/eXmgEFrx 📺 YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eB46kn7j Nvidia is not acquiring its competitor, Groq. Antitrust makes AI deals complicated, so let me explain.

CNBC reported yesterday that Nvidia is acquiring AI inference chip startup Groq for about $20 billion. Groq then confirmed there is an agreement with Nvidia (https://lnkd.in/gkFFQCpP), but that it's a licensing deal, not an acquisition: “As part of this agreement, Jonathan Ross, Groq’s Founder, Sunny Madra, Groq’s President, and other... Groq will continue to operate as an independent company with Simon Edwards stepping into the role of Chief Executive Officer.” In other words, Nvidia is getting Groq’s tech and some of its key employees,... Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang confirmed the deal in an email to his employees, saying: “We plan to integrate Groq’s low-latency processors into the Nvidia AI factory architecture, extending the platform to serve an even... Antitrust regulators haven't been able to keep up with Big Tech's deals for decades, and in the AI era, everything moves even faster. Chamath Palihapitiya turned a single deep-tech bet on AI chip startup Groq into a generational VC outcome, and NVIDIA just wrote the $20B check that proves it.

In 2017, while most investors were still debating ICOs and “AI tokens,” Chamath quietly wired $10M into a tiny custom AI chip startup called Groq at a ~$30M valuation. That one check bought roughly 33% of the company. Then Social Capital doubled down with a $52.3M convertible note in 2018, bringing total exposure to $62.3M. ▪️The numbers that matter Groq went on to raise $300M at a $1.1B valuation in 2021, $640M at $2.8B in 2024, and $750M at $6.9B in September 2025. Along the way, early stakes were diluted, but with board seats and likely pro‑rata, Social Capital still ends up around an estimated 15–20% ownership. At a ~$20B Nvidia takeout price, that’s roughly $3B–$4B in value on a $62.3M cost basis – a 50–65x return in about 8 years.

For context, this single position is now worth more than Social Capital’s entire 2015 fund size of $1.1B. One deal. Eight years. 50x. ▪️The timing flex Chamath made the original bet on custom AI inference chips in 2017 – long before ChatGPT or “inference bottlenecks” were mainstream talking points. He sat on Groq’s board through the hard zero‑to‑one phase and stepped back around 2021, right as the company shifted into scale mode.

Fast‑forward: Nvidia is now paying ~$20B in cash because it needs Groq’s LPU architecture to win inference at scale and lock in its ecosystem. Jensen Huang is effectively cutting a multi‑billion‑dollar check to reward one of the earliest conviction bets on the inference problem. ▪️The lesson for founders & LPs Say whatever you want about SPACs or messy public market experiments – a single deep, non-consensus, technically right bet like Groq more than covers a lot of scars. This is what venture is supposed to look like: concentrated conviction, brutal patience, and the willingness to be lonely on a thesis for years. Curious: in the AI x crypto x infra cycle we’re living through now, what’s the Groq-style non-consensus bet you’d be proud to hold through an 8‑year volatility storm?👇 Seeing deals like Groq's $20B exit... 🚀 If you're hunting access to high-conviction deals like in xAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Figure, Kraken & similar – DM me.

Specializing in private equity secondaries for sophisticated LPs. Groq, an AI chip startup, entered into an agreement with Nvidia to help "advance and scale" Groq's tech. "As part of this agreement, Jonathan Ross, Groq’s Founder, Sunny Madra, Groq’s President, and other members of the Groq team will join Nvidia to help advance and scale the licensed technology," Groq announced in... "Groq will continue to operate as an independent company with Simon Edwards stepping into the role of Chief Executive Officer. GroqCloud will continue to operate without interruption." The deal was first reported as an exclusive with CNBC on Wednesday.

Alex Davis, the CEO of Disruptive, the company that led Groq's latest financing round, said Nvidia has agreed to buy Groq's assets for $20 billion in cash, the news outlet reported. Davis's firm has invested more than half a billion dollars in Groq over the past nine years, CNBC reported. "We plan to integrate Groq’s low-latency processors into the NVIDIA AI factory architecture, extending the platform to serve an even broader range of AI inference and real-time workloads," Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang wrote in... Nvidia’s Strategic Embrace of Groq: A Power Play in AI Silicon In the fast-evolving world of artificial intelligence hardware, Nvidia Corp. has once again flexed its market muscle with a landmark agreement involving Groq Inc., a startup that has been making waves with its specialized chips for AI inference tasks.

Announced just days before the end of 2025, the deal sees Nvidia licensing key technologies from Groq and bringing aboard its top executives, including CEO Jonathan Ross. Valued at around $20 billion, this move marks Nvidia’s largest transaction to date and underscores its relentless drive to solidify dominance in the AI chip sector. According to reports, the arrangement is structured as a non-exclusive licensing agreement rather than a full acquisition, a nuance that has sparked intense discussion among industry observers. This partnership arrives at a pivotal moment when competition in AI processing is heating up, with challengers like Groq positioning themselves as alternatives to Nvidia’s powerhouse GPUs. Groq’s Language Processing Unit (LPU) technology promises faster and more efficient inference—the stage where AI models generate outputs—potentially outpacing Nvidia in certain applications. By integrating Groq’s innovations, Nvidia aims to enhance its own offerings, particularly in areas where speed and cost-efficiency are paramount for large-scale AI deployments.

Sources indicate that Nvidia will pay Groq approximately $20 billion for these assets, while hiring key personnel to ensure seamless integration. The timing of the deal coincides with broader shifts in the tech sector, where big players are increasingly turning to strategic alliances to navigate regulatory hurdles and accelerate innovation. Nvidia, already under scrutiny for its commanding position in AI hardware, appears to have crafted this agreement to avoid the pitfalls of a outright buyout. As detailed in coverage from The New York Times, Nvidia will license Groq’s technology and hire its top executives, adding significant heft to its AI chip portfolio without fully absorbing the company. Analysts have noted that the non-exclusive nature of the licensing allows Groq to remain operationally independent, at least on paper, which could help mitigate antitrust concerns. This structure echoes recent high-profile AI transactions, where tech giants opt for collaborations that preserve the appearance of competition.

For instance, Groq’s own press release emphasizes the agreement’s role in accelerating AI inference at a global scale, highlighting benefits like speed and low cost for developers. Yet, with Groq’s leadership transitioning to Nvidia, questions arise about the startup’s long-term autonomy. Nvidia has struck a non-exclusive licensing agreement with AI chip competitor Groq. As part of the deal, Nvidia will hire Groq founder Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and other employees. CNBC reported that Nvidia is acquiring assets from Groq for $20 billion; Nvidia told TechCrunch that this is not an acquisition of the company and did not comment on the scope of the deal. But if CNBC’s numbers are accurate, this purchase is expected to be Nvidia’s largest ever, and with Groq on its side, Nvidia is poised to become even more dominant in chip manufacturing.

As tech companies compete to grow their AI capabilities, they need computing power, and Nvidia’s GPUs have emerged as the industry standard. But Groq has been working on a different type of chip called an LPU (language processing unit), which it has claimed can run LLMs at 10 times faster and using one-tenth the energy. Groq’s CEO Jonathan Ross is known for this sort of innovation — when he worked for Google, he helped invent the TPU (tensor processing unit), a custom AI accelerator chip. In September, Groq raised $750 million at a $6.9 billion valuation. Its growth has been quick and significant — the company said that it powers the AI apps of more than 2 million developers, up from about 356,000 last year. Updated, 12/24/25 at 5:40 p.m.

ET, with clarification from Nvidia about the nature of the deal. Nvidia has struck a sweeping $20 billion licensing and asset deal with AI chip startup Groq, according to an exclusive report from CNBC, signaling how inference has moved to the center of the artificial... The agreement gives Nvidia access to Groq’s inference technology and key intellectual property, while bringing Groq founder and CEO Jonathan Ross, president Sunny Madra, and several senior leaders into Nvidia’s ranks. Groq will continue operating as an independent company, with its cloud business remaining separate. Groq confirmed the agreement in an announcement on Wednesday, saying, “Today, Groq announced that it has entered into a non-exclusive licensing agreement with Nvidia for Groq’s inference technology. The agreement reflects a shared focus on expanding access to high-performance, low-cost inference.”

The structure of the deal reflects a familiar pattern that’s taking hold across Big Tech. Nvidia is not acquiring Groq as a company, but it is absorbing much of what made the startup valuable in the first place: the technology and the people behind it. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made that distinction clear in an internal memo to employees, writing, “While we are adding talented employees to our ranks and licensing Groq’s IP, we are not acquiring Groq as... Groq, founded in 2016 by former Google engineers, has focused on a narrow but increasingly important slice of AI infrastructure. Its language processing unit chips are built for inference, the stage where trained models generate answers, predictions, and outputs in real time. That work has become central as AI systems move from training labs into everyday products.

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