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TechSpot cites WSJ on Nvidia customer financing and GPU prices
TechSpot, citing a Wall Street Journal profile of interim CEO Colette Kress, said Nvidia expanded customer financing in mid-to-late 2026 to support GPU prices amid a TSMC wafer oversupply.
- TechSpot is now reporting this
- New headline Was: “Nvidia deliberately kept GPU prices high through circular financing deals”
- Our desk filed its story
TechSpot, citing a Wall Street Journal profile of Nvidia interim chief executive Colette Kress, said the chipmaker expanded financing for customers in mid-to-late 2026 in a bid to support GPU prices as it faced an oversupply of wafers from TSMC1.
The site said Nvidia has faced accusations since at least last year that it prolonged AI demand by backing companies that buy its chips, and that founder Jensen Huang and then-chief financial officer Kress had rejected comparisons to Enron1.
According to TechSpot's account of the Journal reporting, Kress was concerned about the size of deals with cloud providers and large AI companies including OpenAI, while Nvidia pressed ahead until summer 2026, when it began to question whether it had gone too far amid what the site called an avalanche of semiconductors ordered from TSMC1.
TechSpot said Nvidia then slowed, reduced or paused some financing arrangements, including a deal with OpenAI that it said originally included a $250 billion backstop for a large data center1.
The site, citing someone familiar with the matter, said Huang berated Kress around that period, calling her "a deer in headlights"1.
TechSpot said AI data-center demand has drawn DRAM and NAND capacity away from consumer memory and storage, that GeForce prices often ran above 160% of original suggested retail, and that the RTX 5090 became hard to obtain as Nvidia directed VRAM and semiconductors toward data-center GPUs1.
As financing support wound down, TechSpot said Huang worried about Nvidia's valuation and, at a Berlin conference, told major clients a story about a Japanese soup vendor who would not serve a second bowl, which the site said he used to argue for a diverse customer base and high prices1.
TechSpot tied the Journal profile to Huang's later resignation after reports of extramarital affairs, including one with Alice Huang, whose company Megaspeed U.S. officials have examined over alleged diversion of chips to China; the site noted President Trump and the Justice Department have said it has not been determined that she was a Chinese spy1.
WhatsNewPaper did not independently read the Wall Street Journal article and is relying on TechSpot's summary1.
