Nvidia sells US$25 billion in bonds as investors seek foothold in AI boom

Nvidia’s $25B bond offering—oversubscribed over 3x—reflects not just investor frenzy for AI exposure, but a strategic race against physical and geopolitical constraints. With advanced packaging and HBM supply tightly concentrated in South Korea and Taiwan, China, and U.S. CHIPS Act subsidies lagging, Nvidia is front-loading capital to secure TSMC CoWoS capacity. This intensifies bottlenecks, pushing rivals like AMD toward chiplet-based alternatives. Crucially, impending U.S. export controls on next-gen AI accelerators could drastically raise compliance costs for Nvidia, whose >70% revenue comes from overseas. Within 18 months, the industry will bifurcate: players with in-house advanced packaging (e.g., Intel IFS) versus those reliant on external ecosystems. The latter face structurally higher financing costs—making Nvidia’s move a final sprint before the window narrows.