In a significant shift from its historically closed approach, Nvidia has unveiled NVLink Fusion, a new technology that opens its AI infrastructure to third-party processors while keeping the company at the center of AI development.
Announced by CEO Jensen Huang during his keynote at Computex 2025 in Taipei on May 19, NVLink Fusion enables the creation of semi-custom AI infrastructure by allowing customers to combine Nvidia processors with different CPUs and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).
"NV link fusion is so that you can build semi-custom AI infrastructure, not just semi-custom chips," Huang explained during his presentation. The technology gives users the benefit of Nvidia's NVLink infrastructure and ecosystem regardless of which processors they pair with Nvidia's GPUs.
Nvidia has already secured several major chipmaking partners for NVLink Fusion, including MediaTek, Marvell, Alchip, Astera Labs, Synopsys, and Cadence. Additionally, companies like Fujitsu and Qualcomm Technologies will be able to connect their own third-party CPUs with Nvidia's GPUs in AI data centers.
Analysts view this move as strategically significant. Ray Wang, a semiconductor analyst, noted that "NVLink Fusion consolidates Nvidia as the center of next-generation AI factories—even when those systems aren't built entirely with Nvidia chips." While the program could potentially reduce demand for Nvidia's own CPUs, the added flexibility improves the competitiveness of Nvidia's GPU-based solutions against alternative architectures.
Notably absent from the NVLink Fusion ecosystem are Nvidia's main competitors—Broadcom, AMD, and Intel—who are members of the rival Ultra Accelerator Link (UALink) consortium that aims to create an open industry-standard interconnect.
The announcement comes as major cloud providers like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon develop their own custom processors, potentially threatening Nvidia's dominance. By embracing interoperability while maintaining control of the critical interconnect technology, Nvidia aims to cement its position as the essential foundation for AI deployment in an increasingly competitive landscape.