Self-hosting — AI news & analysis

Nvidia hired 109 of Poolside's ~115 model engineers — and because it's a licence, your change-of-control clause never fired

On 20 August 2026 Nvidia agreed to pay Poolside $6B to non-exclusively license its Model Factory, plus $1B invested at a $12B pre-money valuation, and to make offers to 109 employees. Poolside's CEO has said under 115 people spanned its entire engineering and research org. The company remains legally independent, so no acquisition clause triggered anywhere. That gap — between who owns a vendor and who can still build its next model — is the thing buyers of self-hosted coding models need to start contracting against.