A year after concerns over circular financing, Nvidia has refined its approach to leveraging its balance sheet in the AI boom. The company now involves a broader group of financiers while reducing its own exposure. Last week, Nvidia signed a framework with six Wall Street firms to extend up to $500bn to its customers, guaranteeing a portion itself.

It also announced a $105bn backstop for an OpenAI data center in Ohio. Despite these moves, Moody's affirmed Nvidia's credit rating, citing its strong financial profile. CEO Jensen Huang argues that Nvidia's chips represent a new asset class for lending, though this lacks historical precedent.

The current chip shortage has fueled rapid infrastructure expansion, with companies like SpaceX seeing quick returns. However, risks remain if supply-demand dynamics reverse. Nvidia is also targeting neoclouds, sovereign, and enterprise customers globally, positioning itself as an 'asset-light pseudo-cloud' by sharing revenue from new data centers.

It recently released an open-source AI model and is developing vertical AI solutions, signaling deeper integration into AI services ahead of the next growth phase.