The trick: Circular Money

Nvidia's CFO says its AI money loop isn't circular.

The chip it sells pays the rent that buys the chip.

Issue 225 September 20266 receipts3 min

Nvidia CFO Colette Kress rejected circular-financing accusations on an August 26 earnings call, saying its compute is fungible and durable and can be redeployed to support other customers, days before Nvidia-backed Lambda signed a new $35 billion six-year compute deal with Anthropic.

Before you read on. Your call?

in this specific deal, per reporting, Nvidia supplies the chips, underwrites the Hut 8 data-center facility, and backs Lambda as the tenant, with rental revenue flowing back through the chain toward Nvidia. Redeployable to other customers is an untested claim, since Lambda's role here exists to serve Anthropic.

The twist

Kress's defense predates this deal and answers the general critique of Nvidia's financing web. It does not answer this one, which Dealroom has flagged as a tighter circular-financing loop than the general portfolio-level defense covers.

$35BAnthropic six-year compute deal with Nvidia-backed Lambda

$50BNvidia's own figure for its total disclosed investment 'in the Frontier AI Labs'

$45BSeparate concurrent six-year Anthropic deal with Nscale

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The trick has a name

We call it Circular Money: the customer is funded by the vendor. You'll see it again. Learn to spot it →

Say this in tomorrow's meeting“Nvidia backs the facility, backs the tenant, supplies the chips, and calls the rent check organic growth.”

Receipts

Supports fool.com: The NVIDIA compute platform is fungible and durable and can be redeployed to support other customers.
Supports fool.com: We recognize the scale of this support, and we know some will call this circular financing. We see it differently.
Refutes dealroom.co: Nvidia underwrites the facility, backs the tenant, and supplies the silicon that generates rental revenue flowing back through the chain.
Context 247wallst.com: A lot of these investments are designed to help the frontier labs, especially OpenAI and Anthropic, but both of them are designing their own [custom chips].
Context 247wallst.com: invested nearly 50 billion in the Frontier AI Labs
Context techcrunch.com: Anthropic has signed a deal to rent about $45 billion in AI compute from Nscale, a British AI infrastructure company, a source familiar with the deal told TechCrunch.

Open the Receipts Pack → What each source proves, every figure traced, and what would change our verdict.