The result, Aug. 11 -- When Jensen Huang approached six of Wall Street's largest asset managers and proposed a $500 billion commitment to artificial intelligence infrastructure, all six signed. Not one turned him down.

a phrase that signals both an investment thesis and a fundamental reframing of what Nvidia's chips are.

"This is really the first time that technology chips have become an investable asset class," Huang said in a CNBC interview announcing the deal. "These are revenue-generating assets now."

The distinction between chips as products and chips as infrastructure assets is the core of what Nvidia is building. Under the arrangement, the six firms create special-purpose vehicles that lease compute capacity to Nvidia's customer...