On October 9, the artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure sector is experiencing a surge of “circular deals.” These deals are fueled by massive investment and procurement commitments, drawing considerable attention. The recent $100 - billion collaboration between Nvidia and OpenAI stands as a prime illustration, unveiling a convoluted commercial network that seems to be artificially propping up the trillion - dollar valuation of the AI industry.

Two weeks prior, Nvidia declared an investment of up to $100 billion in OpenAI. This investment is aimed at bolstering the construction of data centers with sufficient capacity to satisfy the electricity demand of a major city. In return, OpenAI pledged to deploy millions of Nvidia chips in these data centers.

This week, OpenAI pressed ahead with similar collaborative efforts. It reached an agreement with Nvidia's rival, AMD, to purchase AMD chips worth tens of billions of dollars. There's also the potential for OpenAI to become a significant shareholder in AMD.

This sequence of transactions has sparked heightened concerns regarding a possible bubble in the AI industry. It implies that an intricate commercial network is artificially inflating industry valuations. OpenAI alone has inked AI computing power collaboration agreements with Nvidia, AMD, and Oracle. The total investment under these agreements could easily exceed $1 trillion. However, this high - profile startup is still incurring substantial losses and is not projected to achieve positive cash flow until around 2030.