The year 2025 will go into the history books as one in which artificial intelligence dominated, propelling technology companies' valuation to new heights as it witnessed a series of massive deals centered around investments in AI infrastructure and cooperation between the sector's giants.
From Nvidia to OpenAI and Amazon, top U.S. technology companies have agreed on a flurry of deals this year, which, as a result, has raised concerns over what analysts described as "circular financing" and an AI bubble.
Let's take a more detailed look at a list of multibillion-dollar AI, cloud and chip deals signed this year.
Nvidia, the world's largest company by market capitalization, which earlier this year became the first firm ever to touch $5 trillion in valuation, has just last week agreed to license technology from AI startup Groq for use in some of its artificial intelligence chips, marking the chipmaker's largest deal and underscoring its push to strengthen competitiveness amid surging demand.
The Santa Clara-based company has struck at least $125 billion in deals this year, according to calculations, ranging from a $5 billion investment into struggling rival Intel to a partnership and investment of up to $100 billion in OpenAI, the startup behind ChatGPT.
OpenAI itself was among the most active companies this year, whose strategic partnerships spanned from Disney to AMD.
Most recently, media reports indicated Amazon was considering an investment of around $10 billion in OpenAI, though talks were said to be "very fluid," and agreement was not confirmed so far.
Walt Disney, meanwhile, said it would invest $1 billion in OpenAI and will let the ChatGPT-parent use characters from the Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel franchises in its Sora AI video generator – a move that could transform Hollywood content creation.
As part of the three-year licensing agreement, Sora and ChatGPT Images will begin generating videos featuring licensed Disney characters such as Mickey Mouse, Cinderella and Mufasa early next year. The deal excludes any talent likeness or voices.
OpenAI has also partnered with Broadcom to produce its first in-house artificial intelligence processors as the world's most valuable startup seeks extra computing power amid surging demand for its services.
Similarly, AMD agreed to supply artificial intelligence chips to OpenAI in a multi-year deal that would also give the ChatGPT creator the option to buy up to roughly 10% of the chipmaker.
At the same time, Oracle is reported to have signed one of the biggest cloud deals ever with OpenAI, under which the ChatGPT maker is expected to buy $300 billion in computing power from the company for about five years.
Earlier in the year, CoreWeave signed a five-year contract worth $11.9 billion with OpenAI, before CoreWeave had a massive stock debut.
However, one of the projects that undoubtedly stands out in the list is "Stargate," which is a joint venture between SoftBank, OpenAI and Oracle to build data centers. The project was announced in January by U.S. President Donald Trump, who said that the companies would invest up to $500 billion to fund infrastructure for artificial intelligence.
Facebook parent company Meta Platforms, which on Monday agreed to buy AI startup Manus, has also expanded its AI base throughout the year and has appointed new AI chief officer, Alexandr Wang.
Among the deals, CoreWeave has signed a $14 billion agreement with it to supply computing power to the tech giant.
Google also struck a six-year cloud computing deal with Meta worth more than $10 billion, Reuters had reported in August.
Meanwhile, Meta took a 49% stake for about $14.3 billion in Scale AI and brought in its 28-year-old CEO, Wang, to play a prominent role in the giant's artificial intelligence strategy.
Microsoft and Nvidia had both said to invest in Claude-maker Anthropic, with Microsoft investing up to $5 billion and Nvidia up to $10 billion, while the Claude maker will pledge $30 billion to run its workloads on Microsoft's cloud.
Under the agreement, Anthropic will commit up to 1 gigawatt (GW) of compute, powered by Nvidia's advanced Grace Blackwell and Vera Rubin hardware. The company will also team up with Nvidia to improve chips and AI models for better performance.
An investor group including BlackRock, Microsoft and Nvidia is also buying U.S.-based Aligned Data Centers, one of the world's biggest data center operators with nearly 80 facilities, in a deal worth $40 billion.
Google also said it will invest some $40 billion in three new data centers in Texas through 2027. One of the data centers will be in Armstrong County, in the Texas Panhandle, and the other two in Haskell County, a stretch of West Texas near Abilene.
The company is also continuing to invest in its existing Midlothian campus and Dallas cloud region, part of the company's global network of 42 cloud regions.
Intel, which largely lagged behind the overall AI boom, is also getting a $2 billion capital injection from SoftBank Group, making the Japanese tech investor one of the top-10 shareholders of the troubled U.S. chipmaker.
Elon Musk-led Tesla has meanwhile, signed a $16.5 billion deal to source chips from Samsung Electronics, with Musk saying that the South Korean tech giant's new chip factory in Texas would make Tesla's next-generation AI6 chip.
