CNBC Daily Open: Big Tech wants to tap Wall Street's big wallets

Hello, this is Hui Jie writing to you from Singapore. Welcome to another edition of CNBC's Daily Open.

After three years of Big Tech splashing out on AI investments, Nvidia is looking to shake up the industry.

The chip giant has tied up with an all star cast of six U.S. asset managers to back the next phase of the AI buildout, in essence, tapping their wallets instead.

Nvidia also launched its first open-source model, named Nemotron 3.5 Lightning. This is the first model since CEO Jensen Huang joined most of his tech peers in urging the U.S. government to support open models.

In the AI gold rush, Nvidia already sells the picks and shovels. Now it wants Wall Street to help finance the mine.

Nvidia had announced a tie-up with six powerhouses on Wall Street, who said they're willing to raise $500 billion (and potentially more) for the construction and build-out of new AI factories, as chipmakers and hyperscalers race to meet seemingly endless demand.

So there's a fundamental shift: AI infrastructure has become a new asset class.

However, this path is not without risks.

Key to CEO Jensen Huang's plan is one crucial assumption: that Nvidia's graphics processing units will hold their value over time, behaving more like traditional hard assets than fast-depreciating consumer electronics.

Ben Emons, founder of FedWatch Advisors, told CNBC the single biggest threat to Nvidia's financing model comes from China, which is rapidly ramping up domestic compute capacity and could choose to flood the market with low-cost silicon in a price war.

If Chinese production pushes hardware prices into a freefall, the collateral backing hundreds of billions in private loans could erode far faster than the terms of the debt itself, leaving investors exposed to losses, according to Emons.

Nvidia is finding a way to continue growing, though. The company announced its first open source AI model since Huang defended open-source models in AI in July.

The model, known as Nemotron 3.5 Lightning, is "lightweight" and can run on a single graphics processing unit on a PC, according to Nvidia.

For Nvidia, open-source AI is a boon for chip sales, because the models still need to run on GPUs, and the lower prices can serve to boost usage over proprietary models from the likes of OpenAI and Anthropic.

Away from tech, the on-again, off-again nature of the Iran deal continues to stalk geopolitics.

The U.S. and Iran are close to "some sort of arrangement" over the Strait of Hormuz, a senior Pakistani minister reportedly said Tuesday, offering another glimmer of hope for a deal even as the warring powers appear to be hardening their negotiating stances.

Oil markets did not appear to buy this development, with U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures rising 1.3% to close at $83.20 per barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, advanced 1.36% to settle at $88.91 per barrel.

Prices have gained more than 6% this week as hopes fade for a deal to increase ship traffic through Hormuz.

Asia stock markets were mixed in early trade, while U.S. futures were up as investors await key inflation data on Wednesday stateside.

For now, the Hormuz deal has the rhythm of a faulty light at night: on again, off again, and never quite bright enough for oil markets to be sure if its safe.