Why Nvidia Is Investing Its Billions Everywhere (and in Doctolib)

This Tuesday, October 13, Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, was in Paris to announce that his company was taking a stake in Doctolib. The share purchase is largely symbolic: it amounts to a few million euros, whereas Doctolib is valued at €3.6 billion.Jensen Huang will continue his European tour, stopping in London and Belin, and is expected to announce new investments in British and German companies. Nvidia no longer merely designs and sells chips that power artificial intelligence. It is investing heavily in other companies, including… AI companies.

Why is Nvidia taking stakes in so many companies?

For now, there has been no official statement about the strategy Nvidia has been pursuing for several months. But it appears that the company is pursuing several objectives. First and foremost is to make even more money: taking stakes in companies is securing an annuity. All the more so since Nvidia’s stock price is at an all-time high, with a valuation of more than $5.24 billion. This makes it the most highly valued company in the world today. Beyond its valuation, its profits have also soared: $73 billion in net profit (after tax), on revenue of only $130 billion in 2025.

On the other hand, the company seeks to support its existing and future customers by helping them develop uses that will require chips. Chips that Nvidia designs, manufactures and sells. If the companies in which Nvidia is a shareholder experience growth, Nvidia would automatically benefit as well. Thus, the manufacturer becomes an investor in its own market.Thus, in Europe, Nvidia has already invested more than $8 billion in a year, and the total amount is expected to reach more than $10 billion in 2027, according to Jensen Huang’s promises. The man, still clad in a leather jacket, loudly proclaimed: “ I am Europe’s largest venture capital investor!,” as Le Monde reported.

The four French companies in which Jensen Huang’s company invested this month perfectly illustrate its approaches. Doctolib develops AI services for healthcare professionals and patients. Pigment markets a planning platform for businesses. Genesis AI works in robotics, while Entalpic applies AI to materials design. Different activities and technologies, but all of which require computing power to train or run AI models.

An equity investment strategy that goes beyond Europe

The strategy described here is far from being limited to the Old Continent. In the past, Nvidia also took equity stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, and Mistral AI, which are also its customers; it even acquired Hugging Face last month. The group is also a shareholder in CoreWeave, a computing power provider that uses its processors.A strategy that spans every layer of a technology: AI model developers, infrastructure providers (servers, data centers), as well as companies developing end applications (Doctolib, for example).

Also, investing in the United States, but also in Europe, is a way for Nvidia to strengthen its global position in the face of growing Chinese competition. It has long been known that Huawei and its Chinese compatriots have been trying to outpace Nvidia in developing increasingly powerful AI chips and appear to want to continue in 2027. Chinese competitors do not really have a choice: because of trade restrictions imposed by the United States, they simply cannot acquire Nvidia’s most powerful chips. The company is also placing massive bets on Taiwan, in the face of a Trump administration displeased by this tactic.

The war and the bubble

This avoids having to identify a single winner in this economic “war” in AI. Whether AI advances in healthcare, robotics, or professional software, it makes no difference: Nvidia simply wants to sell its chips while benefiting from the value created by some (if possible, as many as possible) of its equity stakes. Moreover, if the company has not made this clear, it may give preference to companies in which it holds stakes when selling its AI chips, even though demand for these components is at its highest.

As for the possibility of the “AI bubble” bursting, Nvidia is preparing for it without really saying so. Jensen Huang conceded that “Demand is currently much greater than supply. Of course, one day, the two will balance out,” in “five, seven or ten years,” Le Monde reports. Nvidia’s market capitalization could fall, and Nvidia knows it. That is why investing its profits elsewhere allows it to build an extremely comfortable cushion.

Industrial dependence, data protection… the risks of Nvidia’s massive investments (in Europe)

The question is legitimate: by investing so much money, could Nvidia take control of European tech companies? Let us remember that, in Nvidia’s case, these are primarily minority stakes. This does not automatically translate into control of a company. In the case of Doctolib, for example, Nvidia will not have a seat on the board of directors.

These investments nevertheless aim to influence the companies that benefit from them. As a partner, Nvidia provides not only chips, but also tools and support, in order to have an influence on companies’ industrial choices. As time goes by, these companies will have every reason to favor continuing to work with Nvidia. Companies will not only be replacing AI chips, but also tools and expertise.In response to these questions, Jensen Huang tried to offer reassurance, explaining that buying American components is not a problem “as long as you operate the service yourself”. Nvidia seeks to show that it has nothing to hide by highlighting “open source” models, of which it claims to be the leader.

Another concern about Nvidia’s strategy is its grip on personal data. This is, for example, the view of Mediapart journalist Martine Orange. In her view, this strategy affects the entire population because it will encourage tech companies in France and Europe to exploit citizens’ personal data even more. All of this while further entrenching Doctolib’s monopoly position: “the support of the digital giant [Doctolib] will help accelerate these developments and erect even more insurmountable barriers to entry”. A way of “leaving no medical practice open to competition”, noted Doctolib executive Stanislas Niox-Chateau in a memo uncovered during the searches at the company ordered by the Competition Authority.

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