Nvidia Invests Billions in Poolside to Challenge Chinese Open-Source AI Models
Nvidia has agreed to pay $6 billion to license AI software from startup Poolside and will hire 109 of its employees to help develop competitive AI models. Additionally, Nvidia is investing $1 billion in Poolside, valuing the startup at $12 billion. This massive deal highlights Nvidia's strategic push into open-source AI models to rival dominant Chinese models like DeepSeek and Kimi K3. By fostering AI adoption, Nvidia aims to drive further demand for its core AI inference hardware. The licensing deal is non-exclusive, allowing Poolside to continue operating independently under its three founders. The hired Poolside engineers will transition to Nvidia to work on its Nemotron model family.
## BACKGROUND
Poolside is an AI startup specializing in large language models optimized for software engineering and coding. Nvidia, the world's leading AI chipmaker, develops the Nemotron family of open-source models, but seeks to close the performance gap with advanced Chinese models like Moonshot AI's Kimi K3.