Nvidia Discussed Another $1 Billion Investment in Figure AI, The Information Reports

Nvidia has discussed investing another $1 billion in Figure AI, the humanoid robot developer, according to a report published Oct. 7 by The Information. The outlet, citing a person familiar with the matter, said Figure is trying to raise new financing at roughly a $38 billion pre-money valuation.

No deal has been announced. Neither Nvidia nor Figure has publicly confirmed the talks, and no closing date or final terms have surfaced.

What Nvidia already has in Figure

Nvidia is an existing backer. Figure announced a Series C in September 2025 with more than $1 billion in committed capital at a $39 billion post-money valuation, and Nvidia was among the investors.

The two valuation figures are not apples to apples. Pre-money excludes the new cash; post-money includes it. Without the terms of the proposed round, nobody can say yet whether the new financing values Figure above or below the Series C mark.

Figure has raised about $1.9 billion over its history. Earlier investors include Microsoft, the OpenAI Startup Fund and Intel Capital. Brett Adcock founded the company in 2022.

The compute side of the relationship

On Sept. 3, Figure announced a partnership with Nscale, a UK-based AI cloud provider. Nscale is providing an initial $3.5 billion in computing capacity, with plans to expand beyond $6 billion.

The plan targets up to 100,000 Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs, with initial deployments scheduled for the second half of 2027 in Barstow, Texas. Nscale will become Figure's preferred compute provider and take an equity stake in the company. The size of that stake was not disclosed.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the arrangement lets Figure train models on Vera Rubin and then run them on Nvidia GPUs inside its robots.

Figure has said its two main bottlenecks are data and compute. Its Index platform pays contributors to record first-person smartphone video of everyday physical tasks, which feeds training for its Helix models. In August, Figure showed its Figure 03 robot autonomously climbing a ladder. The demonstration did not show how reliably the robot can repeat that in different environments.

Part of a much bigger spending pattern

The Information also reported that Nvidia's next investment priorities are humanoid robotics, autonomous driving technology and AI models that run on local devices.

Secondary accounts of that reporting put Nvidia's deal activity at more than $140 billion over a few months, with an equity portfolio approaching $100 billion. Those figures come from reports on Nvidia's dealmaking, not from an Nvidia filing. The same accounts say Nvidia bought Hugging Face for $12.9 billion, more than 80 times its roughly $150 million in annualized revenue. They also say Nvidia first discussed up to $250 billion in credit support for the SB Energy data center project, then trimmed the first-phase guarantee to $105 billion.

One number is Nvidia's own. It disclosed that three customers made up 44% of total sales in the six months ending July. Reports tie the investment push to that concentration, saying Huang wants thousands of AI models serving thousands of uses rather than a few giant buyers.

Not everyone is relaxed about it. According to those reports, Nvidia's credit default swap spreads widened in August, and some investors voiced concern about its financial risk exposure. Huang's stated position, as relayed in the same reporting, is that he invests only in certainties and does not need to take on risk. Nvidia holds about $99 billion in cash and marketable securities, per the reports.

Robots are still mostly a private-market bet

Goldman Sachs has published an 80-page "Physical AI" report arguing that humanoids are moving from lab demos to factory floors faster than previously assumed, according to Yahoo Finance's account of it. Most of the purest humanoid companies are still private or listed overseas. For retail investors, that leaves suppliers of chips, sensors and automation gear as the main route in.

Figure is one of the private ones. Nvidia is writing checks into a market where the public can't buy the stock.

Meanwhile, gaming GPU prices keep climbing

A separate Nvidia story is playing out at retail. German site 3D Center published year-over-year pricing data on Oct. 6 showing Nvidia's RTX 50 series up an average of 66% in 12 months, with the RTX 5090 flagship up 132%. AMD's Radeon RX 9000 series was up 48%.

AMD has also reportedly told board partners including Sapphire, ASUS, XFX and Vastarmor that GDDR6 memory kit prices rose effective Oct. 1. That report traces to the Chinese supply-chain forum Board Channels, with BenchLife corroborating. AMD has not commented, and the size of the increase is unconfirmed. The same coverage says Nvidia reportedly ended RTX 5090 production.

No source ties Nvidia's investment spree to those consumer prices. They are separate developments.

What to watch

The open questions are specific. Does the reported $1 billion turn into a signed deal? What valuation does any new money carry against the $39 billion Series C mark? And does the Barstow buildout hold its second-half 2027 schedule? Until Nvidia or Figure says something on the record, the only evidence for the talks is one outlet's anonymous source.