NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang traveled to Europe for an intensive visit, announcing that he would unveil an investment plan exceeding $2 billion within a week. Combined with the $8 billion already invested over the past year, this move underscores NVIDIA's ongoing efforts to deepen its strategic footprint in Europe. He is actively paving the way for open-source AI, helping Europe narrow the technology gap, and has also injected capital into four French startups spanning healthcare, business software, chemical materials, and robotics.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang is on a high-intensity visit to Europe and will announce an investment plan of over $2 billion in Europe within the next week.
On Tuesday, October 13, Jensen Huang revealed at an event in Paris that the aforementioned $2 billion investment will be announced in stages over the next week. Combined with NVIDIA's $8 billion already invested on the European continent over the past year, its strategic footprint in Europe continues to deepen.
He also announced a new round of funding for the French startups Doctolib, Genesis AI, Pigment, and Entalpic. Following this stop in Paris, Jensen Huang will head to London and Berlin as well.
These developments come as AI technology faces mounting public scrutiny across Europe. From the risks of AI models spiraling out of control to the environmental impact of energy‑intensive data centers, both Europe and the United Kingdom are actively seeking to assume a greater role in global AI governance.
Jensen Huang made a clear statement on this, opposing calls to slow down AI development and emphasizing that AI will boost the economy and can be advanced safely.
Jensen Huang forcefully pushed open the source path.
Jensen Huang stated frankly at the event in Paris:
Europe needs to get involved.
He has promoted open-source models in Europe, arguing that this approach is more cost-effective and adaptable, and can help Europe narrow the gap with the United States in advanced AI.
NVIDIA is a key partner of the French AI startup Mistral AI. Mistral focuses on developing open-weight AI, and NVIDIA has not only invested in the company but also provides accelerator chips for its data centers. Mistral's latest released model runs on 4,000 Grace Blackwell chips.
Jensen Huang stated:
Open-source models are of great significance, as they can be customized to meet the needs of different languages and sovereign requirements.
His recent series of investment moves have consistently focused on open source, with the aim of broadening the scope of AI applications across the global economy and reducing the market's reliance on the products of a handful of large tech companies.
Four French startups have secured funding, highlighting growing interest in the robotics sector.
This time, the four French startups that Jensen Huang announced he would invest in cover fields such as healthcare, business software, chemical materials, and robotics.
Doctolib is one of France's most well-known startups, founded in 2013. It primarily provides administrative services to doctors and healthcare professionals and has now become a key platform for patient appointment scheduling across Europe.
Earlier this year, the company completed a secondary share transfer worth approximately €300 million (about $345 million), valuing it at roughly €3.6 billion—a substantial decline from its last publicly disclosed valuation of €5.8 billion in 2022.
Pigment develops AI-powered enterprise business software; Entalpic applies AI to the fields of chemistry and materials research. Genesis AI focuses on robotics AI, which aligns closely with Jensen Huang's earlier assessment of the humanoid robotics sector.
He predicts that embodied AI, represented by humanoid robots, will become NVIDIA's next huge market.
Editor/Liam