Silicon‑chipmaker Nvidia is reportedly negotiating a $250 billion financing guarantee for OpenAI, the Wall Street Journal said Sunday. The backstop would cover the lease and construction debt of a 10‑gigawatt data‑center campus that SoftBank’s energy subsidiary is developing in southern Ohio. OpenAI, which lacks an investment‑grade credit rating, would rely on Nvidia’s balance sheet to secure the debt, allowing lenders to price the loan against the chipmaker’s credit rather than the AI lab’s.
The $250 billion figure applies only to the data‑center lease and construction financing. A separate discussion is under way for chip‑purchase financing that could reach $350 billion, bringing the total project cost to more than $500 billion once silicon is included. The first phase, roughly 800 megawatts, is slated for completion in 2028.
Power for the Ohio site comes from a U.S. government‑controlled source and is being funded under a recent Japan‑U.S. trade agreement. Japan has pledged $33 billion for a natural‑gas plant that will supply the campus. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is said to be involved in determining access to the site. OpenAI is among several firms vying for the location; Anthropic, Microsoft and Google have also approached Lutnick, according to the Journal.
Investors reacted sharply. Michael Burry, famed for his 2008 housing‑market short, posted on X that Nvidia’s guarantee would effectively lock in $200 billion of ChatGPT‑related chip spending, and he added to his Nvidia short position. Tech commentator Ed Zitron called the arrangement "insane" and "as bearish as it gets," noting the unusual nature of a chip supplier underwriting its customer’s ability to buy more chips.
Nvidia’s involvement goes beyond a simple guarantee. The company has already committed more than $40 billion to AI equity positions, including roughly $30 billion tied directly to OpenAI. Its investment in Ilya Sutskever’s Safe Superintelligence venture exemplifies a pattern where Nvidia funds companies that, in turn, spend heavily on Nvidia hardware.
Vendor guarantees for data‑center obligations are not new, but the scale here is unprecedented. Google previously guaranteed about $44 billion of other firms’ data‑center rent; Nvidia’s proposed backstop would be nearly six times larger. OpenAI’s capital structure has become increasingly layered: eight banks now back SoftBank’s record $40 billion loan to the lab, and SoftBank has sought margin lending secured against its OpenAI stake.
Industry analysts warn that the bulk of these obligations sit off‑balance‑sheet. Research estimates Big Tech’s hidden AI commitments at roughly $1.65 trillion, with Meta alone accounting for about $420 billion. For OpenAI, securing the Ohio campus would mark a shift from renting compute from Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle to owning its own infrastructure, giving the lab greater control over capacity and costs.
From Nvidia’s perspective, the guarantee locks in years of chip orders from a customer that would otherwise struggle to finance them. That certainty underpins the chipmaker’s aggressive AI‑investment strategy, even as critics question the risk of overbuilding AI infrastructure. AI‑related data‑center spending is projected to exceed $700 billion this year and more than $3 trillion through 2028, much of it financed against the chips that power the facilities.
No definitive agreement has been signed. The Journal notes that talks remain ongoing and the $250 billion guarantee is subject to change, a significant caveat given the staggering sum involved.
Este artículo fue escrito con la asistencia de IA.
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