Business model is the logic of a firm, and the engine room that determines how companies capture value in the marketplace. When new technologies emerge, history has shown that the winners are not always the inventors of the pure technology. Instead, victory goes to those who redesign business models, anchoring innovation on fresh pathways through which markets create and redistribute value.
Earlier today, I explained the rising Circular AI Partnership Model that OpenAI is pioneering. In this construct, investments, enterprise deployments, and AI capabilities reinforce one another in a tight, self-sustaining loop. OpenAI invested in Thrive Holdings, not merely as a capital move, but to embed AI systems into Thrive’s portfolio of companies, retrofitting them for higher efficiency and elevated performance. Thrive had already invested in OpenAI. Now OpenAI will power its enterprise operations. That is a circular loop, capital feeding AI, and AI feeding enterprise growth, which in turn feeds capital. A new business model is emerging!
A second example: Nvidia’s $2 billion investment in Synopsys. That partnership will redefine the scale and velocity of AI and computing engineering across one of the world’s most complex design industries. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, captured the moment with characteristic clarity: “This is a huge deal… We’re about to revolutionize one of the most compute-intensive industries in the world.”
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Nvidia on Monday revealed it has purchased $2 billion worth of Synopsys’ common stock, cementing a sweeping multiyear partnership aimed at transforming the speed and scale of computing and artificial intelligence engineering across one of the world’s most design-intensive industries.
The investment — executed at $414.79 per share — forms the financial backbone of a collaboration meant to accelerate compute-heavy applications, advance agentic AI engineering, expand cloud access, and drive joint go-to-market initiatives, according to both companies. The market reaction was immediate: Synopsys stock rose 4%, while Nvidia gained 1%.
Their ambition is bold: shrink the cycle between chip design through chip manufacturing and AI model optimization. Good People, this may be one of Nvidia’s most consequential strategic moves. Why? Because before an Nvidia chip ever ships, EDA companies like Cadence, Synopsys, and others, must design and validate it. If these companies do not accelerate, Nvidia cannot advance. Nvidia’s trajectory is bounded by its upstream bottlenecks!
So, by investing in Synopsys, Nvidia is not merely buying stock; it is upgrading its supply chain, compressing time to market, and strengthening the foundational hardware layer needed to power the AI age. This is how modern technology empires are built: own the compute, shape the tools, and accelerate the pipelines that forge your future.
In 2021, in Harvard Business Review, I asked “Is Your Startup Doing Everything It Can to Capture Value?”. In that piece, I emphasized that value must not just be created; value must be captured. Today, AI companies are rethinking how they capture value. And to do that, they are inventing a new genre of business models.
Welcome to the Circular AI Business Model, the architecture that will power the AI-driven economy.
OpenAI’s New Playbook: Turning AI Partnerships Into Enterprise Wealth
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