Nvidia is investing up to an additional $100 billion in the company behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, as part of an expansion of their partnership to build and deploy the computing power to support the rapid growth of artificial intelligence.

The arrangement calls for deploying at least 10 gigawatts of new AI data computing power, about the equivalent of powering 10 million homes for a year. The investment will be provided in stages as each gigawatt goes online.

Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, says the project is needed because computing demand for artificial intelligence is “going through the roof.”

“This is the biggest AI infrastructure project in history,” Mr. Huang told CNBC on Monday. “This is the largest computing project in history.”

The first phase is targeted to come online in the second half of 2026.

Mr. Huang says AI is entering its “industrial revolution” and says that in the near future, everything done online will be touched by AI.

“It’s a big deal,” Mr. Huang says.

CEO Sam Altman says OpenAI has been under “horrible” constraints due to insufficient computing capacity.

“Now that we really see what is on the near-term horizon of how good the models are getting, the new use cases that are being enabled, what people want to do, this is like the fuel we need to drive improvement, to drive better models, to drive everything,” says Mr. Altman, who joined Mr. Huang and the president of OpenAI, Greg Brockman, in the interview.

OpenAI and Nvidia have been working together for nearly a decade, using Nvidia hardware for training early GPT-2 and GPT-3 models. OpenAI says the partnership complements the work the two companies are already doing with other partners including Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank, and Stargate. 

Mr. Brockman says AI is growing faster than any product in history, with 700 million weekly active users already using ChatGPT and demand continuing to grow.

“We’re able to create new breakthroughs, new models, to be able to actually solve problems like cures for diseases and to actually empower every individual user and business because we’ll be able to reach the next level of scale,” Mr. Brockman says.

The companies say they are still finalizing the details of the increased partnership and that will take weeks to fully flush out. Nvidia’s stock was up about 3 percent after the announcement.