Nvidia is in talks to backstop roughly $250 billion in financing for a massive OpenAI data center project in southern Ohio, the Wall Street Journal reported. The facility would be developed by a SoftBank energy subsidiary and could cost more than $500 billion total including the chips inside.
The $250 billion guarantee covers the data center lease and debt financing but not the Nvidia hardware itself. Nvidia is also separately discussing financing OpenAI’s chip purchases worth up to $350 billion, the report said. The project would be a 10-gigawatt facility drawing power controlled by the US government under a recent trade deal with Japan, with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick involved in deciding power allocation.
If completed, this would represent the largest data center project announced to date and one of the most ambitious financial transactions of the AI boom. OpenAI has been in advanced talks to lease the site for several weeks, while Anthropic, Microsoft and Google have also expressed interest in the power allocation.
The unusual structure where a semiconductor supplier guarantees financing for a customer’s data center buildout has raised concerns among investors about circular financing risks. Nvidia’s stock fell 5% on the news. The company did not respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.
