Nvidia memo says Capital One discussed alternatives to AWS as AI costs could ‘get out of hand’

Capital One is concerned about AI costs rising via its cloud-computing relationship with Amazon and may be looking for alternatives, according to an internal Nvidia document obtained by Business Insider.

In the document, an Nvidia employee wrote that the chip giant talked with Capital One about AI infrastructure alternatives to Amazon Web Services, as the bank was “looking to control costs.”

The Nvidia staffer was recapping discussions with Capital One in an internal email after meeting representatives from the bank at a recent tech conference.

“They see their need for GPUs and reasoning models growing and the costs in AWS will soon get out of hand,” the Nvidia employee wrote, referring to Capital One.

Nvidia and Capital One discussed “AI factory and neo-clouds,” according to the email. An AI factory is an in-house data center that a company can build to train and run AI models as an alternative to renting compute from a third party. Financial institutions can use this infrastructure for tasks such as fraud detection, customer support, and algorithmic trading, according to Nvidia.