Nvidia Offers Startups Computing Power in Exchange for a Cut of Revenue

Nvidia is rolling out a revenue-sharing arrangement that would give AI start-ups access to its coveted computing power without big upfront bills, in return for a slice of their future sales. The move could ease a major barrier for young companies — and further tighten the chip giant's grip on the AI economy.

Anjali Rao July 2, 2026 at 10:13 AM

Nvidia, whose chips have become the essential fuel of the artificial-intelligence boom, is trying a new way to hook the next generation of AI companies: lend them the computing power they cannot yet afford, in exchange for a share of what they eventually earn.

The offer

Under the plan, Nvidia would give developers and start-ups access to compute — chiefly through cloud providers running its processors — in return for a cut of their future revenue, rather than demanding large payments upfront, Bloomberg reported. Nvidia's chief financial officer, Colette Kress, described the approach in a company blog post as a way to help connect data-center operators with cloud services and to build "a new recurring, usage-linked earnings stream" for Nvidia, as CNBC and Bloomberg reported.

Why it matters

The pitch addresses a real bottleneck. Training and running modern AI models requires access to thousands of high-end chips, a cost that can run into the millions and that shuts out all but the best-funded start-ups. By letting young companies prove themselves first and pay as they grow, Nvidia lowers that barrier — while ensuring that success anywhere in the AI ecosystem flows back, in part, to Nvidia.

The concentration question

That is also what worries some analysts. Nvidia already dominates the market for AI chips and has poured tens of billions of dollars into AI companies, taking stakes in players large and small. Layering a revenue-share program on top, critics argue, deepens a kind of circularity: start-ups that lean on Nvidia's compute — and, in some cases, its investment — have every incentive to keep buying Nvidia, making it harder for rivals' chips to gain a foothold, Tech Policy Press argued in an analysis of the company's expanding web of partnerships. Supporters counter that easing the compute crunch is exactly what a fast-moving field needs.

The trade-off for founders

For start-ups, the appeal is obvious: access now, payment later, and no need to raise a fortune just to switch on the servers. The catch is dependence. Betting a young company's growth on Nvidia's platform — and owing it a share of revenue — ties that company's fortunes ever more tightly to a single supplier whose dominance may or may not last. For now, with demand for AI computing far outstripping supply, plenty of founders are likely to take the deal — and Nvidia is betting that many of them will.