Chip giant Nvidia plans to invest up to $100 billion in AI startup OpenAI, the two companies said in a statement.

The investment will be part of a strategic deal to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems for OpenAI’s AI infrastructure to train the ChatGPT maker's next generation of AI models.

The details of this strategic partnership will be finalized in the coming weeks, said the statement.

“Nvidia and OpenAI have pushed each other for a decade, from the first DGX supercomputer to the breakthrough of ChatGPT,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia. 

Sam Altman, cofounder and CEO of OpenAI, noted that everything starts with a compute.

“Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future, and we will utilize what we’re building with Nvidia to both create new AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses with them at scale," added Altman.

Nvidia's investment is expected to help OpenAI lessen its reliance on its largest investor Microsoft.

Earlier this month, OpenAI said that it has signed a non-binding agreement with Microsoft, paving the way for the AI startup to restructure into a for-profit company.

OpenAI started as a non-profit organization and is controlled by a nonprofit board. Microsoft invested in OpenAI in 2019 but as OpenAI grew at a fast clip and products between the two companies competed with each other there has been friction between them.

In September, OpenAI also said it is building its AI-powered hiring platform called OpenAI Jobs Platform, which will directly take on Microsoft's LinkedIn.