In this episode of Motley Fool Money, Emily Flippen, Jason Hall, and Asit Sharma to dive into three recent stories where the operating system underneath a business has started to matter more than the company above it.
Time to chat about:
- Nvidia‘s $2 billion investment into CoreWeave and how AI infrastructure is colliding with physical constraints.
- How restaurant tech is pushing the limits on throughput.
- A rare-earth deal between private companies and the U.S. government highlighting issues of national security.
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A transcript is below.
This podcast was recorded on Jan. 27, 2026.
Emily Flippen: The edge in the stock market may be increasingly going to the companies that own the operating layer, not the brand. We’re reflecting on three examples of this today on Motley Fool Money. Today is Tuesday, January 27th. Welcome to Molly Fool Money. I’m your host, Emily Flippen, and today I’m joined by Fool analysts Jason Hall and Asit Sharma to discuss the power of owning the operating system underlying our everyday lives. Today we’ll be discussing how restaurants are integrating tech improvements to improve throughput, as well as a unique deal between USA are Earth and the government, and how that shows the strategic importance of resources. First we have to start with the recent, but arguably not surprising news out yesterday that CoreWeave is getting yet even more support from Nvidia via a $2 billion infrastructure investment. Now, CoreWeave shares were up more than 10% yesterday after NVIDIA bought $2 billion worth of stock at a share price of around $87, a discount of around 6.5% compared to Friday’s clothing price. Now, this isn’t really a big surprise. I mean, NVIDIA is already even backing CoreWeave because CoreWeave does build and rent the data centers for AI usage that obviously uses NVIDIA chips to run, and NVIDIA does have agreements with CoreWeave to buy unsold data center capacity over the course of the next six or so years. But, Jason, when you look at this deal, is NVIDIA justified by the investment? I mean, they said they’re working with CoreWeave to meet extraordinary demand for Nvidia AI factories, and that the investment will help accelerate its buildout of five gigawatts of AI factories by 2030. But critics obviously were concerned. Some noted that it felt like NVIDIA was bailing out CoreWeave because the arguably running out of cash and saddled with debt. What’s your read of this deal?
Jason Hall: This can be both investing in the company and propping it up. I think it probably is. I’ll talk about that why, but before I get to it, I just want to point out that it’s important as individual investors, we shouldn’t conflate, like, our goals and incentives with NVIDIA’s incentive to either invest in or prop up CoreWeave, whichever it proves to be down the road. Two things can be true. If AI expansion and proliferation does continue to happen, there’s going to be a need for this infrastructure, and the buildout is going to need to continue, and companies like CoreWeave are really facing serious liquidity crises in the meantime. I’ve spent 15 years following big trends in energy and housing. If there’s an important phrase that I think investors should just absolutely sear into their psyches, it’s this secular trend, cyclical demand. A company has to survive weakening near term stuff to profit from a decade of massive growth. We’re going to see ups and downs for demand across the AI cycle. It is a reality. Now, does that mean NVIDIA is putting good money after bad with CoreWeave right now? I think that almost doesn’t matter to a large degree because NVIDIA is so critical. It’s the hub, and there’s all these spokes coming off of it on the wheel of the AI buildout that’s happening right now, and it is a provider of capital in this current space. Whether it turns out to be a profitable deal has a lot less to do with CoreWeave and its execution with some really big things that are happening more broadly, and CoreWeave just has to survive, and maybe it has to stay on the NVIDIA purse strings for a little bit longer to get there.
Emily Flippen: I think it’s a fair point. I don’t know if I fully agree with the concept, though, that they can’t invest too much in the space. I look at a business stock advisor recommendation Ferrari, the Tickers race. It’s a lovely ticker. I always loved that. One of the things I always admired, despite the fact that the stock has been challenged recently is that the management team at Ferrari invested pretty heavily into electric vehicles, but recently actually pulled back on a lot of their loftier goals. It’s not that they don’t believe in the future of electric vehicles, but they said all these targets that we set out initially, we just don’t think they’re as achievable in the near term as set them out to be. We’re still going to be investing, but we’re not going to be investing as heavily. To your point, they don’t want to throw good money after bad, so to speak. They see the future in electric vehicles, but they’re not going to over invest in this space. I think the question becomes, in the case of NVIDIA, can NVIDIA over invest in AI? I think a lot of listeners probably say, No, I don’t think that’s possible. I actually think that it is possible for NVIDIA to over invest in AI. We’ve seen the cycles happen to NVIDIA in the past, whether that be cryptocurrency or gaming. The demand for chips is cyclical in nature, and I worry a little bit about NVIDIA getting a little too caught up in its own narrative. Investing so much money into something that ultimately ends up being a slower cycle than they initially maybe expected it to be. But As, I guess I want to I’ve been talking too much. I want to pass that question off to you. Nobody wants to hear my opinion here. What’s your take on the investment? Do you think it’s a proactive or maybe a reactive move?
Asit Sharma: Well, first I want to say, listening to Jason, it occurs to me the difference between Jason and myself, which I do is that Jason can do something for 15 years. I’ve not in my life been able to do something, anything for the course of more than a couple of years.
Jason Hall: I did it well for 15 years.
Asit Sharma: I didn’t say that either, buddy. No, all jokes aside really respect Jason’s long experience looking at markets and how long they can persist. I’m going to come back to your point, Emily, because I think I slightly I don’t know where I sit. I think I slightly disagree with you. But let’s start with NVIDIA, because I understand the NVIDIA side of it much more than the CoreWeave side. I have trouble understanding still CoreWeave as a business. I’ll get to that in a moment. NVIDIA is a business that is going to soon be the biggest free cash flow generator on the planet. I think by 2029, 2030 it will be way ahead of anyone else who produces appreciable operating and free cash flow. So $100 billion, we’re using very rough numbers here. This year, NVIDIA should generate in free cash flow. By 2030, it’ll be close to $300 billion in free cash flow. Putting a $2 billion investment into CoreWeave in that context places me on the side of the question, Emily, that well, at least in this instance, it’s not over investing. It’s not even material if you take the scale of going from $100-300 billion, just add that progression up. It’s several hundred billion dollars worth of free cash flow that’s coming down the pike. But what is it doing here? It is, I think, investing in its ecosystem. I’m more a believer in this. Jensen Huang used this term AI factories way back when ChatGPT first exploded onto the scene. He had a very clear vision. He thought that these AI factories would have to be replenished every five years. They would have to be equipped with the latest technology, not just GPUs, but networking equipment, all types of storage. Looking over the press release, look, part of this is that CoreWeave has to adopt the Rubin platform via CPUs Bluefield memory, so NVIDIA needs proof points for other hyperscalers, for sovereign governments, for academic research institutions, that its AI factories are the one stop shop for AI, and that has to happen over the next five years. This is why it’s important for NVIDIA I think that otherwise, if that wasn’t in the offing, I would agree with you, Emily, that maybe they’re over investing here. I do believe, though, to circle around to your question, there is a point where NVIDIA could become too diffuse in its investments. We got to keep our eye on that because a couple of billion here could turn into 10 billion to 20 billion there. Then you start getting into a true question of is this all circular? Right now, I believe that investors misunderstand the scale that NVIDIA operates on, but we should watch the numbers If they start to mushroom, yes, it could be the beginning. It could be at the beginning of a circular type of revenue demand cycle, and that won’t be good for anybody.
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