Nvidia is to invest $2 billion (£1.5bn) in chipmaker Marvell, in a move to cement its position at the centre of an unprecedented build-out of AI data centres.
Marvell helps large tech companies including Amazon to build custom processors that compete with those from Nvidia.
Under the deal, Nvidia will work to ensure that those custom chips will work seamlessly alongside its own GPUs, networking and storage systems in shared data centres.
Interoperability
The move expands Nvidia’s technology into a broader platform that includes custom chips, helping it to maintain its dominance in AI infrastructure.
The companies are also to work together on silicon photonics technology to develop next-generation interconnects to speed up data flows within data centres, they said.
Marvell chief executive Matt Murphy said the deal reflects the “growing importance of high-speed connectivity, optical interconnect and accelerated infrastructure” in AI data centres.
Expansion
Nvidia has been working to broaden its offerings in other ways, including offering its first inference chip in March.
The company bought networking provider Mellanox in 2019, and in December hired most of the top staff of AI chip start-up Groq, which contributed to the launch of its inference chip.
