【Weekly Monday】NVIDIA Circular Financing Risk Monitor | 2026-06-22

This Week’s Key Changes

No sudden major risk events this week, but structural risks continue accumulating. OpenAI’s $122B funding announced in March has officially closed, valued at $852B, with NVIDIA participating as a strategic investor. Meanwhile, NVIDIA’s $2B investments in both CoreWeave and Nebius further deepen its利益绑定 in the neocloud ecosystem. 2026 global AI capex is projected at $650-700B, with the circular financing chain extending further.

1. NVIDIA Related-Party Transactions

This Week’s Developments

Risk Assessment

⚠️ Medium-High — NVIDIA’s annual report claims no related-party issues, but its investments in Nebius and CoreWeave create a classic vendor-customer dual relationship. NVIDIA is simultaneously the GPU supplier, equity investor, and these companies are among its largest customers. This “investment-purchase-revenue recognition” closed loop warrants continued monitoring.

2. OpenAI Financial Health

This Week’s Developments

Risk Assessment

🔴 High — OpenAI is one of NVIDIA’s largest customers and one of CoreWeave’s two biggest clients. Its $122B funding round included direct NVIDIA participation, forming the closed loop of “NVIDIA invests in OpenAI → OpenAI buys GPUs → NVIDIA recognizes revenue.” While revenue growth is explosive ($2B/month), losses are equally staggering ($3.7B burned in Q1). If AI commercialization underperforms, losses will cascade through this chain.

3. GPU Cloud Provider Health

CoreWeave

Nebius

Lambda Labs

Risk Assessment

🔴 High — The neocloud business model is essentially using NVIDIA’s GPUs and credit, borrowing Hyperscalers’ money, to build compute capacity that Hyperscalers need but don’t want to build themselves. CoreWeave and Nebius have combined contracts exceeding $120B but current revenues of only ~$16B, representing extremely high leverage. S&P Global explicitly noted that “the circular financing model has stabilized the ecosystem short-term, but long-term risks remain underpriced.”

4. Circular Financing Risk Signals

Key Data

New Analysis This Week

• Bloomberg January deep dive: Explicitly described current AI investments as “circular deals,” warning that “if AI falls short of expectations, the cross-investment network will trigger cascading losses”
• SSRN Academic Paper (April): “The AI Circular Economy” compared current AI capex to the 2000 telecom bubble, noting scale is 3-5x larger in real terms
• IO Fund June 11 analysis: CoreWeave and Nebius growth is “far from profitable,” relying on aggressive financing expansion amid worsening macro backdrop

Risk Assessment

🔴 High — The core problem with circular financing structures is risk contagion. NVIDIA invests in neoclouds → neoclouds use that money to buy NVIDIA GPUs → NVIDIA recognizes revenue → stock price rises → NVIDIA has more money to invest in neoclouds. Once terminal demand (AI application revenue) fails to cover costs, the entire chain faces a reverse spiral. We are currently in the positive cycle phase, but leverage ratios and scale already far exceed historical comparables.

5. Competitor Custom Chip Progress

Google TPU v7 (Ironwood)

Amazon Trainium 3

Microsoft Maia 200

Risk Assessment

🟡 Medium — Custom chip progress is rapid, but短期内难以dethrone NVIDIA’s dominance in training. The three hyperscalers’ custom chips primarily target inference optimization and reducing NVIDIA dependency, not full replacement. Google Ironwood’s 4.61 PFLOPS FP8 performance is noteworthy, but CUDA ecosystem lock-in remains. Long-term, custom chips will compress NVIDIA’s inference market pricing power.

Overall Risk Assessment Matrix

Overall Risk Level: 🔴 High (↑ from last week)

Core Conclusions

1. OpenAI’s $122B funding close is the week’s most significant event — This is not risk mitigation, it’s risk deepening. NVIDIA’s participation as strategic investor further binds the “investment→procurement→revenue recognition” closed loop. OpenAI’s $3.7B quarterly burn rate means it must continue raising capital, with NVIDIA playing a dual role.

2. Neocloud leverage ratios are concerning — CoreWeave+Nebius combined contracts exceed $120B but current revenues are only ~$16B. This is not growth, it’s leverage. If Hyperscalers cut or delay contract execution, neoclouds face a liquidity crisis.

3. The circular financing chain is lengthening, not shortening — From NVIDIA to CoreWeave/Nebius to Hyperscalers to OpenAI/Anthropic, every layer adds leverage. S&P Global’s assessment is accurate: short-term stabilization, long-term underpricing of risk.

4. Custom chips are a long-term antidote, short-term ineffective — Google Ironwood and Amazon Trainium3 are making good progress, but CUDA ecosystem lock-in in training remains the real moat. The genuine threat lies in inference; Maia 200’s actual deployment needs continued tracking.

5. Current stage assessment: The positive cycle is still running, but it’s a high-leverage positive cycle. Stay vigilant and monitor these triggers:

   • OpenAI quarterly losses exceeding $5B
   • CoreWeave/Nebius contract execution rate below 80%
   • Any new complex structures in NVIDIA related-party transactions
   • Any neocloud experiencing financing difficulties