Nvidia, in promoting artificial intelligence and excellent graphics card applications, launched the Nvidia Inception program last year. However, yesterday's news of stopping cryptocurrency startup applications caused an uproar in the industry, and today's report of suspending cooperation with Arbitrum seems to indicate a clear stance of distancing from the blockchain circle.
Arbitrum Suspended from Nvidia Inception
The Nvidia Inception program is a resource-sharing initiative supported by Nvidia, where company leaders or business managers can obtain various resources provided by Nvidia through official website registration.
After yesterday's controversy, the issue quickly spread to the LAYER2 cooperation project Arbitrum. According to Coindesk reporting, Arbitrum personnel felt extremely wronged, only receiving a written notice of unilateral cancellation. Initially, it was designated as Nvidia's exclusive Ethereum partner for building the Ignition AI accelerator, which was a subcategory of the Inception program. However, more information suggests this category might be entirely canceled:
We received a last-minute notification from Nvidia requesting to suspend the program, but they did not provide any specific details.
Is AI Squeezing Out Blockchain?
The reason for excluding the program remains unknown. In the past, Nvidia has publicly appeared with blockchain founders, with NEAR founder Polosukhin previously discussing AI with Jensen Huang at the GTC conference, and even sitting next to him for a conversation last year.
But why is Nvidia eager to cut ties with the blockchain industry? Experts estimate it might be related to past mining lawsuits, but this change could potentially indicate hidden recent events that might have made Nvidia wary of crypto startups.
An industry insider mentioned hearing about a somewhat famous blockchain project that frequently used Nvidia's cooperation name and is currently facing investor controversies, though it's uncertain whether this affects Nvidia's policies:
Recently, a certain X project was well-known in the industry and used Nvidia's name to obtain many graphics cards and some financing. But reportedly, they're now facing cash flow problems and investor disputes, potentially leading to the project's collapse. I'm unsure if this is related, but if they're using crypto startups as a scapegoat, it seems reasonable. The AI industry has recently been somewhat over-financed, so many problematic projects exist.
Another possibility is that some AI agent meme fund projects used Nvidia's name for fundraising, so they chose to reject everything.
Experts believe this message strongly signals that Nvidia and Jensen Huang are indicating irreconcilable differences between AI and cryptocurrency domains, which will significantly impact the Web3 + AI field's development.
