Nvidia in talks to guarantee up to $250 billion in financing for OpenAI's Ohio AI data center project

Nvidia is in talks to provide a roughly $250 billion financial backstop for OpenAI as part of a data center project in southern Ohio that could ultimately cost more than $500 billion, potentially making it the largest data center project ever announced. The backstop would enable OpenAI to lease a 10-gigawatt facility being built by SB Energy, SoftBank's energy subsidiary, on the site of a decommissioned uranium-enrichment plant near Piketon, Ohio, approximately 50 miles south of Columbus.

Nvidia is guaranteeing financing tied to the lease and construction debt because OpenAI, still unprofitable and privately held, lacks an investment-grade credit rating on its own. The $250 billion figure covers only the building and its lease, not the Nvidia hardware destined for the facility. In parallel negotiations, Nvidia is discussing separate financing for OpenAI's chip purchases for the site, a deal that could reach another $350 billion. Combined, the two arrangements could total roughly $600 billion, ranking among the largest single financing packages in the history of the technology industry.

Nvidia has already invested $30 billion directly in OpenAI. By backstopping the Ohio lease, Nvidia guarantees years of future demand for its own chips, since the facility is purpose-built to run them. Investor Michael Burry, known for betting against the broader AI sector, publicly criticized the structure as Nvidia effectively guaranteeing OpenAI's spending on Nvidia's own products—a circularity that has drawn scrutiny given how much of the AI buildout now runs through similar vendor-financing arrangements.

The site's power is controlled by the U.S. government and partly funded by Japan under a recent trade deal, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick involved in deciding which companies gain access. Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google have each separately approached Lutnick about the same site, meaning the Ohio campus may ultimately host infrastructure for more than one AI lab.