Nvidia Launches GPU Marketplace to Broaden Access to Its Chips

Chipmaker Nvidia announced Sunday (May 18) that it is launching an artificial intelligence marketplace for developers to tap an expanded list of graphics processing unit (GPU) cloud providers in addition to hyperscalers.

Called DGX Cloud Lepton, the service acts as a unified interface linking developers to a decentralized network of cloud providers that offer Nvidia’s GPUs for AI workloads.

Typically, developers must rely on cloud hyperscalers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud to access GPUs. However, with GPUs in high demand, Nvidia seeks to open the availability of GPUs from an expanded roster of cloud providers beyond hyperscalers.

When one cloud provider has some idle GPUs in between jobs, these chips will be available in the marketplace for another developer to tap.

The marketplace will include GPU cloud providers CoreWeave, Crusoe, Lambda, SoftBank and others, according to a Sunday press release.

The move comes as Nvidia looks to address growing frustration among startups, enterprises and researchers over limited GPU availability. With AI model training requiring vast compute resources — especially for large language models and computer vision systems — developers often face long wait times or capacity shortages.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in March that the computing power needed to train the next stage of AI has “grown tremendously.”

The trajectory of GPU demand was in doubt in late January when startup DeepSeek disclosed that it trained its high-performing foundation AI model using only 2,048 slower Nvidia H800 chips instead of typically tens of thousands or more for OpenAI and the like.

The news wiped out Nvidia’s market value by nearly $600 billion in one day, as Wall Street sold off the stock thinking GPU demand was overblown.

Huang said in March he believes that demand will be even greater in the future because of agentic AI and reasoning. He predicted that working alongside 1 billion knowledge workers will be 10 billion AI agents.

DGX Cloud Lepton fits into the future, functioning as a discovery tool and marketplace, enabling users to compare and select from various cloud GPU vendors based on availability, cost and other preferences.

Developers retain full autonomy over their provider choices, and the company does not restrict or intermediate those relationships, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday (May 19).

This direct approach to developers also signals a strategic shift for Nvidia. Traditionally, the company worked behind the scenes with cloud providers who would, in turn, offer access to Nvidia hardware. Now, Nvidia is cultivating its own relationship with developers and enterprise customers, a move that could strengthen its influence in the growing AI services ecosystem.

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