Nvidia CEO Denies VIA Investment Rumors

VIA shares are up for sale, but Nvidia says it's not buying

Late last month we caught wind of a rumor that said that Nvidia was planning to pick up a sizable portion of a private placement of up to 300 million shares of VIA Technologies.

Now, according to a Digitimes story, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang is denying that the GPU maker is planning on investing in VIA Technologies.

Some sort of cooperation between Nvidia and VIA is natural, as the second generation Ion platform will support the VIA Nano (as well as the full Intel line). Huang said that’s as far as the relationship goes at the moment.

With all the rumblings that Nvidia could be looking to get into the x86 CPU market, it’s hard to ignore what VIA could add bring to the table. Still, it’s to be expected that executives from either company would be tight-lipped on any sort of deal, if there was one to begin with.

With both CPU and GPU demand looking bleak after a dismal late 2008/early 2009, Huang said he’s holding a conservative outlook on the industry despite signs of recovery. Economic factors undoubtedly play a role in any business moves Nvidia could make.

Either way, VIA is putting up its shares for the taking, so we’ll know more by VIA’s investor’s meeting in June at the latest.