By Light Reading
Publication Date: 2026-04-07 07:30:00
Jensen Huang, the boss of Nvidia, is known mainly for his leather jackets, AI evangelism and graphics processing units (GPUs), the semiconductors planted in the world’s data centers that have turned most of his employees into millionaires. But Huang has also become a constantly whirring cash dispenser for tech companies in his vicinity, spraying dollars that are gratefully snatched by Nvidia’s gang of allegiants.
Some of those are involved in telecom, an industry that seems to enthrall Huang. And a $2 billion investment in Marvell Technology, Nvidia’s latest move, is one of its most intriguing yet. It comes as Marvell urges 5G network vendors outside China to adopt a single silicon platform for the radio access network (RAN) products that each of them sells, Light Reading has learned. That silicon role is one Marvell is keen to play.
It does, however, seem to clash with the strategy pursued by Nvidia. Outlays that would have other investors nervously sweating into their suits are pocket change for the chip behemoth, with its fat margins, $60 billion in net cash and market cap north of $4 trillion. Nvidia’s Marvell deal followed investments worth $5 billion in Intel, $2 billion in each of Coherent and Lumentum and, notably, $1 billion in Nokia. The latter makes the Finnish vendor of network products Nvidia’s primary (some might say only) vehicle for the concept of AI-RAN, which proposes the use of GPUs at 5G and future 6G sites. Today, those are powered by Marvell’s custom…