The NVIDIA Pyramid: The Company Built a Financial Scheme That Could Bury It

The artificial intelligence industry, experiencing an unprecedented boom, rests on two pillars: NVIDIA chips and borrowed money. Companies building AI data centers are taking out loans en masse, using the very GPUs they buy from NVIDIA as collateral. This scheme turns every dollar of the company's investment into five dollars in sales, but it creates a fragile ecosystem vulnerable to shocks.

NVIDIA is actively investing in companies that become its key customers. In September 2025 alone, the company invested in 22 startups, many in the AI space. Particular attention is drawn to so-called "cloud-native" providers like CoreWeave, whose business is built on renting computing power to large tech companies. Since 2023, CoreWeave has secured a series of large loans to build data centers, which are then leased out, including to NVIDIA itself. A cycle is created where NVIDIA's money, through investments and loans, flows back to it as payment for chips and cloud services.

The primary financial risk of this model lies in the uncertainty surrounding the value of the assets used as collateral. GPUs depreciate rapidly due to breakneck technological progress. If the value of GPUs on the secondary market falls faster than anticipated by the loan repayment schedule, companies may be required to post additional collateral.

A crisis scenario could be triggered not even by global, but by local problems. For example, a delay in the construction of one data center due to weather or power supply issues could lead to a default by a small company. Larger partners in the chain would then be forced to recognize losses, which could provoke a chain reaction. According to Vanguard estimates, a key risk for the economy in 2026 is a downturn in AI investment.

The paradox of the situation is that NVIDIA, being the chief architect of the current AI boom, has simultaneously created its main vulnerability. The company has pumped up the industry with loans backed by its own chips, creating a fragile ecosystem entirely dependent on its success and its willingness to bail out partners. Once the insane demand for its GPUs subsides, it will have to either spend billions to support the companies it invested in, or watch as the market is flooded with its own obsolete equipment, crashing sales of new GPUs.

Thus, the company risks being the first and hardest hit by the collapse of the bubble it helped inflate. The key question now is not if this structure will collapse, but whether NVIDIA can orchestrate a controlled deflation without triggering a disaster.