Nvidia Weighs $250 Billion Backstop for OpenAI Ohio Data Center
The chipmaker is discussing an unprecedented financial guarantee to secure lease and debt financing for a 10-gigawatt computing hub, separate from up to $350 billion in chip purchase financing.
Nvidia is in advanced discussions to provide a $250 billion financial guarantee backing OpenAI's lease and debt financing for a massive data center campus in southern Ohio. The unprecedented arrangement would transform the chipmaker from hardware supplier into critical financial guarantor of AI infrastructure, according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
The deal remains under negotiation and has not been finalized.
Scale and Location
SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary, is developing the campus on federal land in Pike County, Ohio, at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a Department of Energy facility. The project is planned to deliver 10 gigawatts of power capacity.
Total project costs could reach approximately $500 billion, including both infrastructure and chip purchases, according to multiple outlets citing people familiar with the discussions.
Separate Chip Financing
The $250 billion guarantee covers lease obligations and debt financing for the physical infrastructure, not the cost of Nvidia chips themselves.
In parallel discussions, Nvidia is exploring separate financing arrangements for OpenAI's chip purchases, which could total up to $350 billion. The backstop secures the buildings and power; a separate financial structure would fund the GPUs inside them.
Strategic Implications
The talks signal deepening interdependence between the two companies at the center of the AI boom. OpenAI has immense compute requirements to train and operate next-generation models. While Microsoft remains OpenAI's primary cloud provider and investor, the scale of these plans requires financing beyond traditional venture or corporate balance sheets.
For Nvidia, moving into financial guarantor represents a strategic evolution. The company has already invested directly in OpenAI—reports cite a prior $30 billion commitment, though figures vary across sources. Guaranteeing infrastructure debt would further align Nvidia's fortunes with OpenAI's success while securing demand for its chips.
Capital Intensity of the AI Race
The sheer magnitude underscores the capital intensity of contemporary AI development. A $500 billion project would rank among the largest private infrastructure investments in U.S. history. The 10-gigawatt power requirement alone rivals the output of several nuclear power plants.
These discussions reflect a broader shift toward sovereign-scale computing hubs, where AI labs pursue dedicated facilities rather than relying solely on hyperscaler cloud capacity. The Ohio location offers access to power infrastructure and federal land, though final terms remain subject to ongoing negotiations.
What Remains Uncertain
Sources emphasize that the legal structure and specific terms of the guarantee are still being negotiated. The arrangement has not been finalized, and details could change before any agreement is announced.
If completed, the deal would mark one of the most ambitious financial transactions in tech industry history, binding the leading AI chipmaker and the leading AI lab in a partnership extending far beyond traditional vendor-customer relationships.