Anthropic, OpenAI, and Nvidia all filed more H-1B visa applications in Q2 2026 than they did a year earlier, moving the opposite direction from much of the tech industry as the fight for specialized AI talent intensifies. Anthropic's certified applications jumped from 10 to 59 and OpenAI's from 20 to 63, while Nvidia, far larger at 765, still grew, even as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon posted steep declines. The contrast lands alongside a court fight over the program, with a federal judge ruling Monday that the Trump administration lacked the authority to impose its temporary $100,000 fee on overseas applicants, a cost one recruiter called a rounding error next to the price of missing the right researcher.
