Jensen Huang on an Acquisition Spree: Investing in Perplexity, Acquiring Poolside, and Raising Chip System Prices by 17%
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Nvidia moved three times in rapid succession — leading a multi-billion-dollar round in Perplexity, paying $6 billion to acquire Poolside, and hiking flagship chip-system prices by roughly 17%. Jensen Huang is trying to turn Nvidia from a chip seller into the company welded into every data center, but whether customers can absorb the price increase will cap this expansion.
What do these three deals actually buy?
Nvidia plans to lead a multi-billion-dollar funding round for AI search company Perplexity, while acquiring AI coding firm Poolside for $6 billion in licensing fees plus the hiring of 100 employees.
Poolside started in coding AI agents, then pivoted to data-center infrastructure and open-weight models. This means → Huang isn't buying a coding-tool shop — he's buying the team and data that can push Nvidia's own Nemotron model to the frontier.
In plain terms = Nvidia is purchasing its ticket into the top tier of open-source models.
Why pour money into the data-center supply chain now?
Huang had already announced three consecutive data-center infrastructure investments, all aimed at locking in Nvidia's hardware-software bundle before construction even begins.
This means → Nvidia's playbook has shifted from "sell chips and wait for orders" to "weld yourself into the project before the client breaks ground."
This reflects a deeper worry: power shortages and cost overruns could trigger chip oversupply — locking in customers early is insurance against a demand downturn.
What does a 17% price hike mean?
Server vendors have told customers that flagship systems carrying Blackwell and Rubin chips will cost roughly 17% more when they ship next year, The Information reported.
The outlet estimates the increase would add at least $5 billion to the construction cost of a single gigawatt-scale data center.
In plain terms = for hyperscalers, the chip-system line item alone jumps by $5 billion per facility — a cost that will eventually flow through to cloud-service pricing.
What should investors watch on the earnings call?
Nvidia reports fiscal Q2 2026 earnings this week; revenue growth is expected to outpace last quarter.
But the pricing pressure and a more complex policy environment won't show up in the numbers yet. This means → strong figures don't rule out undercurrents — the real signal will come from management commentary.
CEO Jensen Huang and CFO Colette Kress are expected to address two pivotal questions head-on: can customers absorb the price hike, and can Nemotron break into the frontier open-source tier — the two tests that will validate or undermine this entire expansion push.
Content is for reference only, not financial advice.