Nvidia has paused its AI Compute Partnership program less than two months after launch, the Wall Street Journal reports, as antitrust concerns mounted over the $36 billion initiative’s revenue-sharing terms.
The program guaranteed rentals to smaller GPU cloud providers in exchange for 50% of revenue above a base hourly rate. According to Nvidia’s quarterly filing, the program had already accumulated $36 billion in commitments before being put on hold.
Employees warned customers that the arrangement could invite antitrust scrutiny, given how much control Nvidia exerts over the AI infrastructure market. The pause comes as regulators increasingly examine the relationships between chip manufacturers and cloud providers.
The move is significant because it marks one of the first visible pullbacks from Nvidia’s aggressive expansion into cloud AI services. The company has dominated the AI chip market but faces growing competition from custom silicon efforts by OpenAI, Amazon, and Google.
Smaller cloud providers that had signed up for the program now face uncertainty about their infrastructure strategies. Many had built business models around Nvidia’s guaranteed revenue terms, and the pause leaves them scrambling for alternatives.
The antitrust scrutiny adds to Nvidia’s regulatory challenges. The company is already under investigation for potential violations of export controls related to AI chips reaching China through third countries, and Taiwan recently raided Unimicron—one of Nvidia’s PCB suppliers—over allegations of China-parts relabeling.
Industry observers note that the pause could benefit smaller chipmakers and cloud alternatives as enterprises seek to diversify their AI infrastructure supply chains.