NVIDIA will pay $6 billion to acquire the licensing rights for the Poolside AI model and plans to absorb its employees

Insiders say that NVIDIA has agreed to pay $6 billion for the licensing rights to the Poolside artificial intelligence (AI) model and will extend job offers to over 100 employees.

Due to the confidential nature of the discussions, the insiders, who requested anonymity, stated that the startup also received an additional $1 billion investment from NVIDIA, with a pre-investment valuation of $12 billion. The insiders noted that Poolside will continue to operate independently.

The insiders mentioned that existing investors will receive a payout from the funds provided by NVIDIA.

Representatives from NVIDIA and Poolside did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The tech news brief Newcomer was the first to report this news.

NVIDIA is investing heavily in the AI industry, and this deal is the latest in a series of such transactions. As a dominant player in the AI processor field, NVIDIA is trying to accelerate the application of AI technology across the economy, believing that this is crucial for ensuring future demand for its chips and computer systems.

Poolside has offices in the U.S. and Paris, and its developed models focus on automating computer programming, particularly for government and defense software.

The structure of this deal bears some similarities to NVIDIA's acquisition of most of the assets of chip startup Groq. Reports indicated that NVIDIA paid around $20 billion at that time for a non-exclusive license to use Groq's designs and took on most of the company's employees and founders.

Such transactions have faced criticism from some lawmakers, who believe that these arrangements circumvent merger reviews