New Delhi, Sept. 26 -- It's not every day the world's richest company funds its own sales-but Nvidia just did, in a $100 billion bet on OpenAI.

On 22 September, the $4.5 trillion chipmaker announced it would invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, and in return become the company's primary supplier of AI chips for years to come. The news alone sent Nvidia's market cap soaring by $180 billion in a single day.

But behind the blockbuster numbers lies a far more complicated story. The deal exposes Nvidia's reliance on a handful of customers, its vulnerability as a hardware company chasing relentless upgrade cycles, and the risk of alienating Big Tech clients while betting on a combative new rival.

It also raises uncomfor...