Nvidia Just Sold Its Stake in Applied Digital and Arm Holdings and Piled Into a New Artificial Intelligence GPU Player Up Over 7,200% Since Its IPO

Aside from being the artificial intelligence (AI) chip king, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) also has a small investment portfolio. The company tends to invest in key partners, customers, and suppliers and has also invested in compelling AI companies. In some quarters, there is very little movement in Nvidia's portfolio. But in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2025, the company was active.

Nvidia dumped its stake in Applied Digital (NASDAQ: APLD) and ARM Holdings (NASDAQ: ARM) while initiating a new position in a relatively new chip player, one whose stock is up over 7,000% since the company's initial public offering (IPO).

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Selling ARM and Applied Digital

Nvidia has a strong history with Arm, which licenses architecture and other designs used to create central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs), the semiconductors that train large language models (LLMs). Nvidia actually tried to acquire Arm for $40 billion several years ago, but couldn't overcome regulatory concerns.

Arm eventually went public in 2023, and Nvidia invested in the IPO. The company now has a market cap of $134 billion and has more than doubled in value since the IPO, so perhaps Nvidia is taking gains here. Nvidia still has a 20-year license agreement for the use of Arm technology, which it plans to use to build CPUs for a range of uses, including robotics and supercomputers.

Applied Digital is an AI data center company that purchases Nvidia GPUs and effectively rents them out to companies looking to run AI applications.

Like many data center stocks, Applied Digital trades at a big valuation. In the company's 2026 second fiscal quarter (ended Nov. 30, 2025), Applied Digital grew revenue 177% year over year while also narrowing losses from $143 million to about $31.4 million. However, trading at an $8.7 billion market cap, the stock carries an expensive valuation, so investors should be careful.

Buying a legacy tech stock that's a new GPU player

Last September, Nvidia announced it would purchase a $5 billion stake in Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), once a dominant tech player, which has struggled in recent years to adapt to the new world of AI. As part of the deal, Nvidia and Intel will team up to build chips for data centers and computers.

Nvidia isn't the only stakeholder that has assisted the company. Last year, President Donald Trump's administration also took a nearly $9 billion stake in Intel, funded largely by grants, including through funds authorized by the CHIPS Act, which set aside funding for companies building chip factories in the U.S. Intel is investing over $100 billion to grow its U.S. manufacturing facilities in Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Ohio.

Intel plans to become a major AI player by developing an open-source, full-stack AI solution that will train LLMs, perform inference, and enable companies to build, test, and optimize their AI architecture, enabling them to go to market faster. Intel is also building its next-generation Jaguar Shores GPU, which will supposedly be able to compete with the likes of Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

The market seems to like the company's transition and the support from Nvidia and the U.S. government, as the stock has rocketed by over 73% in the past year, although shares are still down 29% over the past five years. Intel certainly has some momentum in the CPU and GPU spaces, though significant competition exists in both. Given the big run in the stock, I'm neutral right now and would look for further evidence that the company's transition is working and that it can compete, especially in the GPU space.

Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Intel, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.