US tech giant Nvidia will invest up to $100bn (£73bn) in OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT, the companies announced.

Nvidia said it will supply high-performance chips needed for the processing power required by artificial intelligence (AI), of which OpenAI is a specialist.

It is the latest move in an escalating race between global tech firms trying to get ahead in the AI sector, where China is an emerging rival.

The announcement comes after a series of high-profile investments by Nvidia, including a $5bn investment in Intel and a £2bn investment in the UK’s AI sector.

Nvidia said its latest investment will go towards growing data centres for OpenAI’s “next-generation AI infrastructure”.

Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, said the funding will mark the “next leap forward and power the next era of intelligence”.

Both firms said they were already working with a broad network of collaborators focused on making the “world’s most advanced AI infrastructure”, including working with Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank, and Stargate.

OpenAI said it had over 700 million weekly active users, and that its new partnership with Nvidia would “advance its mission to build artificial general intelligence that benefits all of humanity.”

It added that the details would be finalised in the coming weeks.