No one represents this wave of AI hype more clearly than Jensen Huang.
This individual, NVIDIA CEO – a engineer who started his career washing dishes at Danny’s restaurant and is known for his tough approach – now seems to have become the pivot around which the AI world revolves. NVIDIA’s GPU is an indispensable and hard-to-obtain “shovel” in the AI industry, and demand has driven the company’s public market valuation to soar above an astonishing $5 trillion. (NVIDIA is also akin to the central bank of a cyclical AI economy in terms of its function.) In the AI field, almost all paths lead to NVIDIA, especially to Jensen Huang himself.
This week, Fortune's Jeremy Kahn and Beatrice Nolan had a conversation with Jensen Huang in London. Jensen Huang shared his views on the cybersecurity incidents that have made headlines in recent months, including the incident where OpenAI's proxies autonomously coordinated attacks against the startup Hugging Face. (It is worth noting that NVIDIA agreed to acquire the open-source platform Hugging Face for nearly $13 billion in September.) Kahn and Nolan wrote:
Jensen Huang told Fortune that so far, these incidents could have been avoided through stronger isolation and better monitoring of the AI proxies. He compared this problem to the early days of the consumer internet, when clicking on a website could potentially infect a computer with a virus. The solution was to have the browser run the websites in an isolated environment so that they could not affect other parts of the computer. Jensen Huang stated that the AI proxies also need to be treated in the same way; they should be encapsulated within a secure container to prevent them from causing damage beyond their authorized access scope.
Jensen Huang also expressed his disgust towards the recent rampant AI doomsday theories in the air. He didn’t name anyone specifically, but you can probably guess who he’s referring to (for example, Anthropic, which was recently valued at $965 billion in May and has become the focus of discussions about “AI will kill us all”. Over the past few months, there have been rumors that this company is preparing to go public, yet it has kept postponing its plans). In Jensen Huang’s view, the answer is simple: if someone believes that AI is so dangerous and beyond control, then they should stop.
Jensen Huang also casually dismissed many warnings about the risks associated with the existence of AI issued by insiders from leading AI companies, including the CEO of Anthropic, Dario Amodei and others. He stated regarding Fortune that this technology is “completely under our control.”
“I don’t understand why anyone would want to support the advancement of a technology that will ultimately lead to the end of human civilization as we know it. So, if they truly believe that, they should stop doing so,” he said.
My personal interpretation of Jensen Huang's remarks is that he seems to have started losing patience, and in the end, he regards these warnings as exaggerations—perhaps also as a way to avoid taking responsibility.
See you on Monday,
Allie Garfinkle
X: @ agarfinks
Email: alexandra.garfinkle @ fortune.com
Submit the transaction information for communication of Term Sheet here.
Joey Abrams has organized the transaction section from today's communications.
Venture Capital
- New York-based financial operations software company Ramp raised $1.85 billion in funding. Dragoneer Investment Group, Thrive Capital, Founders Fund, Sands Capital, and Avenir Growth led the investment, with Fidelity Management & Research Company, T. Rowe Price, D1 Capital Partners, Greenoaks, token issuer NIQ, GIC, Coatue, and General Catalyst among other investors also participating.
- New York-based North.cloud, a software developer that manages cloud, AI and data expenditures, has completed a $60 million Series B financing round. PeakSpan Capital led the investment, with Litquidity Ventures, Companyon Ventures, Alpaca, Uncommon Denominator, Gaingels and Mana Ventures also participating in the round.
- Holyvolt, headquartered in Stockholm, is a company that develops battery materials using AI and has received $45 million in financing from Zone II, CC.VC, and angel investors.
- Sunbound, headquartered in Washington, D.C., has developed income management software driven by AI for retirement living operators and has completed a $24 million Series A financing round. TTV Capital led the investment, with Bling Capital, Fika Ventures, Live Oak Bank, and Ziegler Linkage Fund also participating.
- Headquartered in San Jose, Opsin develops security and governance software for AI, raising $21 million in financing. SYN Ventures and Race Capital led the investment.
- Headquartered in Stockholm, Matters is a developer of personal finance platforms powered by AI. The company has completed a seed financing round of $5 million, with investors including Jakob Johansson, Knut Fr, ngsmyr, Douglas Stark, Johan Bladh, Patrik Tran, and Per Widerstrom.
- Silvia Bio, headquartered in Sheffield, UK, has secured a seed funding round of £3 million (US$4 million) to develop technologies and additives for improving biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Northern Gritstone led the investment, with Parkwalk Northern Universities Venture Fund, UK Innovation, Science Seed Fund, Wren Capital as well as angel investors also participating.
Private Equity
- Led by GTCR, a consortium including Elliott Investment Management has agreed to acquire CCC Intelligent Solutions. Headquartered in Chicago, this company provides software for the insurance and automotive repair industries, and the transaction will be completed in full cash for an enterprise value of approximately $6.1 billion.
- PACT Capital Partners has acquired a minority stake in Sterling Investment Partners. Sterling Investment Partners is a private equity firm headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, specializing in business services and distribution companies. The financial terms have not been disclosed.
Others
- Sunbound has acquired Richter Healthcare Consultants. The latter is headquartered in Twinsburg, Ohio, and provides income management, accounting, and consulting services for retirement and post-acute care operators. Financial terms have not been disclosed.
Funds + Funds within Funds
- New York-based medical investment firm OrbiMed has raised $3 billion, which will be allocated across two funds: over $1.9 billion will go towards its tenth private equity fund focused on life science companies in the United States and Europe, while more than $1 billion will be used for its sixth Asian fund, which specializes in healthcare growth equity and venture capital.
Characters
- Los Angeles-based venture capital firm Overture has hired Lucie Hankin as an investment partner. She was previously responsible for the risk strategy of Grok Ventures.












