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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang speaks at the Supermicro keynote presentation during the Computex conference in Taipei on June 1, 2023.

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Investors have become so enamored with Nvidia’s artificial intelligence story that they want a piece of anything the chipmaker touches.

On Wednesday, Nvidia disclosed in a regulatory filing that it has stakes in a handful of public companies: Arm, SoundHound AI, Recursion Pharmaceuticals, Nano-X Imaging, and TuSimple.

With the exception of Arm, which topped $130 billion in market cap recently, shares of the Nvidia-backed companies soared on Thursday following the 13F filing, a form that must be submitted by institutional investment managers overseeing at least $100 million in assets.

But none of these investments would be surprising to anyone who took the time to sift through old news reports and filings. The AI mania is firmly in an irrational exuberance phase, and investors are pouncing on anything and everything in the space.

Nvidia's earnings numbers will continue to go up, says Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon

No stock is hotter than Nvidia, which passed Amazon in market value on Tuesday and then Alphabet on Wednesday to become the third most valuable company in the U.S., behind only Apple and Microsoft. Nvidia shares are up more than 200% over the past 12 months due to seemingly limitless demand for its AI chips, which underpin powerful AI models from Google, Amazon, OpenAI and others.

SoundHound, which uses AI to process speech and voice recognition, jumped 68% on Thursday, after Nvidia disclosed a stake that amounted to $3.7 million at the time of the filing. Nvidia invested in SoundHound back in 2017 as part of a $75 million venture round.

SoundHound went public through a special purpose acquisition company in 2022, and Nvidia was named as a strategic investor in its presentation.

Nano-X uses AI in medical imaging. Nvidia’s disclosure of a $380,000 investment in the company sent the stock up 59% on Thursday. Nvidia’s involvement dates back years to a venture investment in Zebra Medical, an Israeli medical imaging startup. Nano-X acquired Zebra in 2021.

TuSimple, an autonomous trucking company, rocketed 40% on Thursday after the disclosure of Nvidia’s $3 million stake. The share rally comes a month after the company announced plans to delist from the Nasdaq due to a “significant shift in capital markets” since its 2021 IPO. TuSimple debuted at $40 a share and now trades for roughly 50 cents.

“Accordingly, the Special Committee determined that the benefits of remaining a publicly traded company no longer justify the costs,” TuSimple said in a release on Jan. 17. “The Company is undergoing a transformation that the Company believes it can better navigate as a private company than as a publicly traded one.”

Nvidia invested in TuSimple in 2017, four years before the IPO.

Nvidia acquired its stake in biotech company Recursion more recently. Like TuSimple, Recursion went public in 2021, but Nvidia bought in two years later through what’s called a private investment in public equity (PIPE). Nvidia bought $50 million worth of shares in 2023 and now has an investment worth $76 million, according to its filing.

Recursion shares spiked 15% on Thursday.

Nvidia’s own financials will be on full display next week, when the company reports quarterly earnings. Analysts are expecting year-over-year revenue growth above 200% to more than $20 billion.

The company’s more recent investments are likely to be much more significant than its earlier bets, disclosed late Wednesday, because they’re at the heart of the AI boom. In recent years, Nvidia has backed hot AI startups including Cohere, Hugging Face, CoreWeave and Perplexity.

“AI is transforming the way consumers access information,” said Jonathan Cohen, Nvidia’s vice president of applied research, in Perplexity’s announcement of a $73.6 million funding round last month “Perplexity’s world-class team is building a trusted AI-powered search platform that will help push this transformation forward.”

WATCH: Perplexity AI aims to rival Google

Perplexity AI aims to rival Google

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Firefly Aerospace prices shares at $45, above the expected range

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Firefly Aerospace prices shares at , above the expected range

The Blue Ghost Mission Operations Engineer, Jaxon Liebeck, showcases the Blue Ghost moon lander at Firefly Aerospace headquarters on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024 in Cedar Park.

Houston Chronicle/hearst Newspapers | Hearst Newspapers | Getty Images

Firefly Aerospace priced shares in its IPO at $45 on Wednesday, above its expected range.

The Texas-based rocket maker will debut on the Nasdaq Thursday under the ticker symbol “FLY.” The offering raised $868 million and values the company at about $6.3 billion.

Firefly filed its initial prospectus in July and upped its IPO range this week to $41 to $43 a share, from an initial range of $35 to $39.

The space technology sector has seen rising investor interest over the last few years as billionaire investors such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos put their money behind SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively.

So far this year, space technology companies Voyager Technology and Karman Holdings have gone public.

The broader IPO landscape has also seen major public debuts this year from Figma, CoreWeave and Circle as the market for public offerings reopens following a prolonged drought.

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Trump vows 100% tariff on chips, unless companies are building in the U.S.

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Trump vows 100% tariff on chips, unless companies are building in the U.S.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an event with Apple CEO Tim Cook in the Oval Office of the White House on August 6, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Win Mcnamee | Getty Images

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will impose a 100% tariff on imports of semiconductors and chips, but not for companies that are “building in the United States.”

The announcement of new sector-specific tariffs shows Trump ratcheting up his efforts to pressure businesses to manufacture their products in the U.S.

But specifics about the plan, such as how much U.S. manufacturing a company needs to do in order to qualify for the tariff exemption, were not immediately clear.

“We’re going to be putting a very large tariff on chips and semiconductors,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon.

“But the good news for companies like Apple is if you’re building in the United States or have committed to build, without question, committed to build in the United States, there will be no charge,” he said.

“So in other words, we’ll be putting a tariff on of approximately 100% on chips and semiconductors. But if you’re building in the United States of America, there’s no charge.”

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Trump had previously signaled that the duties on chips and semiconductors, which have become key components in virtually every industry, could come as soon as next week.

The remarks came after Trump touted a commitment by Apple to invest another $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years, on top of the $500 billion the tech giant has previously pledged.

Several top chipmakers, including Taiwan Semiconductor, Nvidia and GlobalFoundries, have already pledged to manufacture some of their products in the U.S.

They’re not alone: More than 130 projects in the U.S. totaling $600 billion dollars have been announced since 2020, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip company, has pledged to invest a total of $165 billion in U.S. manufacturing.

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, said in April that it plans to spend $500 billion on AI infrastructure in the U.S. over the next four years.

GlobalFoundries pledged $16 billion in June to expand its semiconductor manufacturing at facilities in New York and Vermont.

Also in June, Texas Instruments announced a $60 billion boost to seven chip fabs in the U.S. The company counts Apple, Ford, Medtronic, Nvidia and SpaceX as customers.

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Apple and Trump detail $100 billion U.S. spending expansion, including $2.5 billion for an iPhone glass factory

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Apple and Trump detail 0 billion U.S. spending expansion, including .5 billion for an iPhone glass factory

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as Apple CEO Tim Cook gestures, as they present Apple’s announcement of a $100 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, while U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stand in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 6, 2025.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

Apple CEO Tim Cook and President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that the iPhone maker will spend an additional $100 billion on U.S. companies and suppliers over the next four years.

The company said its investment would incentivize overseas companies to buy more U.S.-made parts. The commitment is on top of a $500 billion announcement that Apple made in February.

“This is the largest investment Apple has ever made in America and anywhere else,” Trump said. “As you know, Apple has been an investor in other countries a little bit, I won’t say which ones, but a couple, and they’re coming home.”

Trump said that he expects new U.S. factories to be built soon based on his policies.

“There are a lot of factories and a lot of plants that are either under construction or soon we’ll be starting construction,” Trump said. “So can’t tell you exactly when, but I want to be around a year from now.”

Apple on Wednesday said it created the so-called American Manufacturing Program that includes Corning, Coherent, GlobalWafers, Applied Materials, Texas Instruments, Samsung, GlobalFoundries, Amkor and Broadcom.

The company said it would spend $2.5 billion to fund a major expansion with Corning, which makes glass for iPhones in Kentucky. Apple said that all glass for iPhones and Apple Watches will be manufactured in the U.S. at Corning’s facility.

A gift given by Apple CEO Tim Cook to U.S. President Donald Trump stands on President Trump’s table, as they present Apple’s announcement of a $100 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 6, 2025.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

At the White House, Cook presented Trump with a souvenir based on Corning’s glass.

Apple also said it had a multiyear supply agreement with Coherent to produce lasers for the iPhone’s facial recognition system.

The company said its U.S.-based supply chain would produce more than 19 billion chips for its products this year. That’s including chips made by TSMC in Arizona, Apple said. It also includes U.S.-made wafers from GlobalWafers and chips from Texas Instruments. 

Apple said it would collaborate with Texas Instruments to install additional tools in factories in Utah and Texas. GlobalFoundries, a U.S.-based foundry that manufactures older chips particularly for the U.S. government, will manufacture wireless charging technology in New York for Apple.

The iPhone maker said its goal was to have an “end-to-end” supply chain, which means that every part of the chipmaking process can take place on American soil.

Earlier this year, Apple said it would invest $500 million in a rare earths miner and that it would build AI servers at a factory in Texas.

“Oh, I love that you’re doing this,” Trump said after reading a list of Apple’s announcements.

“President Trump shared some kind words about that work, but he also asked us to think about what more we could commit to doing,” Cook said about Apple’s earlier initial $500 billion commitment. “Mr. President, we took that challenge very seriously.”

Trump has criticized Apple and Cook for not making its smartphones in the U.S., a move that Apple has never signaled that it is likely to make. Experts say that moving production of a high-volume, complicated electronics product like the iPhone to the U.S. would be economically infeasible and could take years.

When asked about the possibility of making the iPhone in the U.S. on Wednesday, Cook said that many of the parts inside the device were made in the U.S.

“If you look at the bulk of it, we’re doing a lot of the semiconductors here, we’re doing the glass here, we’re doing the face ID module here,” Cook said.

Not Apple’s first U.S. commitment

Apple has made similar announcements in the past. In 2018, under pressure during the first Trump administration, Apple committed to spend $350 billion in the U.S. over five years, or about $70 billion per year. In 2021, Apple announced plans to spend $430 billion over five years, or $86 billion per year in the U.S. Wednesday’s announcement has the company at $600 billion over four years, or $125 billion per year. 

Much of what Apple has announced has come to fruition, although the company doesn’t report its U.S. spending on an annual basis and suppliers generally don’t break out how much revenue comes from Apple. 

The company also faces increased tariffs that could hurt its profits. It’s currently paying for tariffs placed on Chinese imports earlier this year, and faces increased import taxes on semiconductors when the Trump Administration finishes a so-called Section 232 investigation.

Trump said on Wednesday that he planned to impose a 100% tariff on semiconductors and chips, but that Apple was exempt because it is committing to build in the U.S.

Apple in May said that the majority of phones it’s selling in the U.S. are assembled in India to avoid Chinese tariffs, and although tariffs on India are going up to 25%, White House sources told CNBC that the iPhone maker will be “largely unaffected” by the India tariffs. Apple said that tariffs could cost the company $1.1 billion in the current quarter. 

In 2017, Apple announced that it was creating a $1 billion manufacturing fund, which would go towards future purchase commitments with U.S. suppliers. Apple raised that to $10 billion earlier this year.  Corning, one of the participants in Wednesday’s announcement, previously got two public commitments from Apple’s manufacturing fund. 

In 2021, Apple said that its U.S. spending was outpacing its initial 2018 announcement. In its initial announcement, the company said it would spend $10 billion on data centers in North Carolina, Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and Iowa. Apple operates data centers in all those states today. 

Apple on Wednesday said it was expanding data centers in North Carolina, Iowa, Nevada and Oregon. 

WATCH: Apple’s bigger issue continues to be its missing AI, says Wedbush’s Dan Ives

Apple's bigger issue continues to be its missing AI, says Wedbush's Dan Ives

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