Jensen Huang just pulled off a $20 billion “Christmas Coup,” and the industry is still trying to figure out if it’s an acquisition, a licensing deal, or just a very expensive game of talent-poaching. On Wednesday, December 24, 2025, Nvidia reportedly signed a deal to acquire the core assets and talent of Groq, the startup famous for making the world’s fastest AI inference chips.
The thing is, the paperwork is a bit “messy” on purpose. Officially, Groq is calling it a “non-exclusive licensing agreement” and says they’ll stay independent. Or nothing. Let’s be real, when the founder, the president, and the entire engineering team move into Nvidia’s offices, the “independence” is mostly for the antitrust lawyers. Those too.
Also Read | Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi Sentenced to 17 Years in Jail
The Deal Breakdown: 20 Billion in Cash
Nvidia is sitting on about 60.6 billion in cash, so they didn’t even need a loan for this.
-
The Price: 20 billion (all cash). This is roughly 3x Groq’s valuation from just three months ago (6.9B).
-
The Talent: Founder Jonathan Ross (the guy who basically invented Google’s TPU) and President Sunny Madra are officially joining Nvidia.
-
The “LPU” Tech: Nvidia is buying the IP for Groq’s Language Processing Unit. While Nvidia’s GPUs are the kings of training AI, Groq’s chips are up to 10x faster at inference—the part where the AI actually talks back to you.
The Trump Jr. Connection
And here’s the kicker: this deal is a massive win for 1789 Capital, the VC firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner. They were part of the group that pumped $750 million into Groq in September 2025. In just 90 days, their investment has effectively tripled in value.
Also Read | Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi Sentenced to 17 Years in Jail
Why Nvidia is “Buying” Talent, Not the Company
It’s an ongoing trend where Big Tech buys everything inside a startup without actually merging the companies. Microsoft did it with Inflection AI, and now Nvidia is doing it here.
-
Antitrust Dodge: By not “buying” the company, they hope to avoid the same regulatory nightmare that killed their Arm acquisition.
-
The Cloud Loophole: Groq’s cloud business (GroqCloud) will stay independent under a new CEO, Simon Edwards, so current customers (who might be Nvidia’s rivals) aren’t immediately cut off.
What This Means for 2026
| Feature | Nvidia H100/B200 | Nvidia + Groq LPU |
| Speed | 40-100 tokens/sec | 300-750 tokens/sec |
| Primary Use | Training Models | Real-time Voice/Chat |
| Memory Tech | HBM (Expensive/Slow) | SRAM (Ultra-fast) |
Jensen Huang’s memo to employees was pretty clear: they plan to bake Groq’s “low-latency” tech directly into the Nvidia AI Factory. If you thought ChatGPT was fast now, wait until it’s running on a chip designed by the guy who built the TPU but owned by the guy who owns the GPUs.
Also Read | Imran Khan and Bushra Bibi Sentenced to 17 Years in Jail
End…
