Nvidia is reportedly discussing an investment in AI data startup Mercor at a $20 billion valuation, according to The Information, as the chipmaker continues expanding its presence across the artificial intelligence ecosystem beyond semiconductors.
The proposed valuation would be double Mercor’s $10 billion valuation from October, with existing investor General Catalyst expected to lead the financing round.
Mercor Supplies AI Training Data
Mercor specializes in producing high-quality training data for frontier AI models.
The company recruits domain experts – including lawyers, financial professionals, scientists, and other specialists – to manually create and verify datasets used to train advanced artificial intelligence systems.
As AI models become increasingly sophisticated, demand for expert-labeled data has grown rapidly because it helps improve reasoning, accuracy, and performance in specialized tasks.
Nvidia Becomes a Major Customer
Mercor’s relationship with Nvidia has expanded significantly this year.
According to the report, Nvidia paid the startup tens of millions of dollars last quarter for expert-labeled datasets that were incorporated into the latest versions of the company’s Nemotron open AI models.
Historically, Mercor generated much of its business from frontier AI developers such as OpenAI and Google, but Nvidia has quickly become one of its fastest-growing customers.
The company reportedly doubled its annualized revenue to approximately $2 billion by June, reflecting accelerating demand for AI training data.
Nvidia Expands Its Venture Strategy
The potential investment also reflects Nvidia’s increasingly aggressive venture capital strategy.
During the quarter ending in April, the company invested approximately $18.6 billion in private companies and AI infrastructure funds more than it invested during the entire previous year.
Rather than focusing solely on GPU sales, Nvidia has expanded investments across the AI ecosystem, including infrastructure, software, cloud computing, robotics, and model development.
AI Data Becomes Strategic Infrastructure
Mercor’s rapid growth highlights the rising importance of data in the AI industry.
While computing power remains essential, frontier AI companies increasingly view high-quality training data as a scarce strategic resource capable of improving model performance.
For Nvidia, investing in Mercor would strengthen access to one of the industry’s fastest-growing AI data suppliers while reinforcing its broader strategy of supporting every layer of the artificial intelligence value chain.
