By Olivia Hart

Nvidia’s private-AI strategy now faces its first test without Jensen Huang, with $189 billion of 2026 AI investments raising the stakes for new interim CEO Colette Kress. The immediate test is capital allocation: whether Kress sustains Nvidia’s investment pace while preserving its roles as AI supplier and public-market benchmark.

Only a week earlier, AI without Huang seemed impossible; by November 13, 2026, his resignation was less than 24 hours old. Kress must now determine how far to follow Huang’s investment playbook, while investors still lack clarity on Nvidia’s dealmaking pace and capital commitments.

What does Huang’s exit change?

Nvidia’s private-market power extends beyond its investment portfolio. Harrison Rolfes, PitchBook senior research analyst, said: “Nvidia matters more to private AI markets than any single investor because it has three roles. It’s the largest corporate investor in U.S. AI.”

He added that Nvidia is “the main supplier for AI startups” and “the main benchmark public stock investors use to judge the AI market.” That combination gives Nvidia unusual leverage over funding, hardware access and public-market expectations across AI.

The unresolved issue is how Nvidia and Kress will handle dealmaking. Kress, or any successor to Huang, could become more circumspect, making another year at Nvidia’s record investment pace less certain.

How much capital is at stake?

Nvidia invested $189 billion in 2026, making it AI’s largest corporate backer in the United States. OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI account for $172 billion of that total, while 27 other deals make up the remaining $17 billion.

Nvidia has yet to close its $12.93 billion buyout of open-source startup Hugging Face. The pending transaction offers investors a visible test of the new leadership team’s appetite for large deals.

Which neoclouds face the sharpest risk?

Neoclouds face the sharpest exposure because Huang served as their dealmaker and guarantor. One early-stage VC said: “If they’re dependent on Nvidia to bankroll them, like CoreWeave or Lambda Labs or some of these neoclouds, then I think you could be really screwed.”

That dependence turns a change in corporate appetite into financing and infrastructure risk for investors underwriting those companies. CoreWeave, Lambda Labs and similar operators cannot assume Nvidia will provide equivalent financing support.

What happens to Anthropic and AI valuations?

Private-market activity will continue despite the leadership change. Anthropic’s IPO remains high-stakes but, for now, very much on, while some venture capitalists expect Huang’s exit to pressure AI valuations.

The reset argument is blunt. Rob Biederman, managing partner at Asymmetric, said: “I think the valuations were ridiculous anyway. I don’t think it would be the worst thing for the tech world if there was a little bit of a reset shakeout.” He added: “A lot of things are getting funded right now that aren’t especially good ideas.”

What should startups do now?

Rolfes expects Nvidia to invest less for now, while lower GPU prices could partly offset that pullback. His advice to startups: “If you’re a startup, maybe don’t reach out to Nvidia in the short term to get investment cash.”

The alternative is to secure compute and buy chips instead of relying on Nvidia’s capital. Rolfes said: “What they should do is reach out to go get compute, go buy the chips…”

Cheaper chips would then let more companies build products and advance. “If some of these startups can get a hold of cheaper chips, then they can build out their product,” Rolfes said. “We’ll probably start to see an influx of seed-stage and Series A-stage startups moving up.”

What should investors underwrite now?

The near-term underwriting task is to separate chip economics from dependence on Nvidia capital. Investors should test whether lower GPU prices let startups fund product expansion without Nvidia’s near-term investment cash, and whether neocloud financing models still assume support the company may not provide.

Anthropic’s IPO and the pace of seed and Series A formation will show whether private AI can absorb Huang’s departure. Nvidia’s supplier role and public-market benchmark status provide continuity, but its $189 billion investment pace does not.