Nvidia invests £2bn in UK AI startups, a vote of confidence

NVIDIA has announced a plan to invest £2B into AI infrastructure and startups in the UK, marking a significant vote of confidence in the region’s AI ecosystem. The combination of robust compute infrastructure, a strong academic base, and growing private capital support positions the UK as a rising AI hub. This also reflects a broader trend where geopolitical alignment is reshaping capital flows in frontier tech. For venture investors, this is a signal worth watching—how public-private partnerships and local ecosystems respond to these megaplayers will shape the next wave of AI innovation. #AI #VentureCapital #DeepTech #UKStartups #NVIDIA #InfrastructureInvestment https://lnkd.in/g8jGttxf

If you want to understand who's really winning the Artificial Intelligence race, don't follow the headlines—follow the money. This map from Bloomberg is the best visual explanation I've seen of the flow of capital in the AI ecosystem. Spoiler alert: a few tech giants and their strategic bets dominate almost everything. Take a look and draw your own conclusions. What surprises you the most? #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Investment #Finance #Tech #Startups #Bloomberg

Thanks Rubén Domínguez Ibar for sharing ! Indeed the best AI map ever. Great visualization! It also clearly shows how financial ecosystems can become insular. Real innovation ecosystems thrive when capital circulates across multiple industries, not just in a high-speed loop within one alliance of giants. The capital flow into #AI is impressive, but I wonder if the global economy isn’t over-concentrating innovation funding into one domain at the expense of other critical sectors like healthcare infrastructure, energy transition and social tech. #TechForGood OpenAI AMD Intel Corporation Oracle Microsoft

What if the companies winning the AI race today are building the wrong future? Nvidia dominates. Oracle owns the cloud. AMD's buying in. The numbers look compelling: 30–50% upside, 80% market share, accelerating utilization rates. But we've engineered a self-reinforcing loop: Investors fund vendors → Vendors supply AI labs → Labs generate breakthroughs → Breakthroughs attract investors → Cycle repeats. It's essentially a mirror reflecting what we prioritize - speed, scale, financial returns and what we systematically overlook: ethical implications, societal purpose, human consequences. History demonstrates this pattern consistently. Personal computers. The internet. Smartphones. We invariably rush to capitalize first, comprehend later. Rubén Domínguez Ibar are we trading equity for computational power or might we start trading ego for collective wisdom? #VentureCapital #StartupFunding #ArtificialIntelligence

The AI market looks like open competition, but it is already controlled by a closed loop of capital and infrastructure dominated by Nvidia, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle. In this environment, access to capital is not a competitive advantage. The real moat will come from strategic independence: companies that own their infrastructure, build differentiated models and dominate real use cases will define the next decade of AI.

The ROI Reality Check: It’s a Valuation Bubble Built on Real Technology We are deep in the throes of "market euphoria." Investments are flooding into Artificial Intelligence (AI), and let’s be clear: AI is a paradigm-shifting technology. The issue isn't the tech itself; it's the valuation bubble that has inflated around it. We must always remember the "R" in ROI: Return. Liquidity is called that because it's liquid, not solid—it moves. If capital moves quickly toward AI, it can just as quickly shift elsewhere. The real crux is the Return. I want to see the results after 6, 12, and 24 months. We talk about innovation, but giants like OpenAI are creating a monstrous cost "crater," a staggering amount of red. Eventually, even those who currently have excess capital will tire of it. We are sitting on a ticking time bomb: tic-toc, tic-toc. When another opportunity emerges—for example, Quantum Computing (as seen by the Nobel Prize recognition)—the wave will move in days, not weeks. It's the game of the matchstick: ·        I know it will eventually blow up. ·        I make money quickly. ·        I pass it on to the next person. It's not that we are all "stupid"; it's that we are all convinced we are smarter than everyone else. And that's a classic mistake. The error isn't made by the naive, but by the overly presumptuous. We've seen this dynamic before with the dot-coms, cryptocurrencies, and the subprime crisis. We all think: “I'll hold the matchstick, cash out, and pass it on before it's too late.” For me, I wouldn't invest in AI at today's prices—not because the technology isn't real, but because the valuation risk is too high. Who will you pass the match to? #ROI #Investing #QuantumComputing #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #MarketEuphoria #CriticalThinking #ACN #Cybersecurity #PA #PublicAdministration

AI may or may not be in the midst of a bubble, but the appropriate takeaway from this image is that the CUDA ecosystem is the key bottleneck asset for the entire AI industry.

𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗿𝘀, 𝗔𝗜 𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. Everyone circles the scarce seats until the music cuts. Then it gets feral. Chairs vanish. GPUs, cloud slots, power and credit count as furniture. “Winner” is whoever is fast enough not to lose. Now read the arrows. They expose dependencies, not markets. Nvidia sets the tempo on capacity and price. OpenAI sits at the drum kit. It announced partnerships with Samsung and SK Hynix under Stargate, with a stated target of 900,000 DRAM wafer starts per month. Terms were not disclosed. The real carpenters spend first: fabs, stacking, testing, utilities. If demand softens or terms shift, they can end up holding the bill. Missing from the graphic: AWS, Google, Meta, TSMC, ASML, grid operators, lenders, regulators. Omission hides competition, bottlenecks and enforcement. 𝗔𝗱𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲. New rare-earth export controls add licensing friction that can delay or reroute inputs. Supply is not an outright ban, but timing becomes a risk. Prior curbs on gallium, germanium and antimony for US buyers showed how customs windows can upend build plans. Severity varies by node and part, but schedules live and die by paperwork. Governance asks, not guesses: disclose any take-or-pay or prepay terms, cancellation penalties, counterparty concentrations, supplier protections and rare-earth exposure with mitigations and alternates. Bottom line: when the track stalls, invoices do not. Final liability rests with society, often the partners, taxpayers and customers. 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗟𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻. Sources: OpenAI announcement, partnerships and 900k wafer target: https://lnkd.in/g9uqFUA7 Reuters roundup on Samsung and SK hynix supplying OpenAI and market impact: https://lnkd.in/gdbMBgFX Reuters market reaction on Samsung and SK hynix shares: https://lnkd.in/gwdcqk8Z Reuters explainer on China’s rare-earth export controls and licensing: https://lnkd.in/gdh5CUh4 Reuters on China’s Dec 2024 export bans for gallium, germanium and antimony: https://lnkd.in/gwmw_ByE

Fascinating how this cycle shows the deep interlink between tech, capital, and innovation. The AI ecosystem is becoming a tightly connected web where hardware, software, and investment continuously feed each other. The impact is faster breakthroughs, but also higher systemic risk if one node fails My friend Ashraf Mostafa, EMBA, LLM has just posted a video discussing the same topic, Please check it out.

🔁 The Bloomberg map nails it - this is what the AI flywheel of capital actually looks like in motion. 💽 Hardware funds software → 🧠 Software drives demand for hardware → 💸 Capital reinvests → 📈 Valuations explode We’ve built a system where compute, capital, and capability compound on themselves, faster than any previous tech cycle. From the inside, it doesn’t feel like hype. It feels like reflexive growth. The moat isn’t data. It isn’t distribution. It’s momentum itself. ⚙️ The only question left - can anyone keep the flywheel spinning forever? 👀