Report: Nvidia Weighs $250 Billion Guarantee for OpenAI's 10-Gigawatt Ohio Data Center
Report: Nvidia Weighs $250 Billion Guarantee for OpenAI's Ohio Data Center
The Wall Street Journal reports that Nvidia is in advanced talks to guarantee approximately $250 billion in financing so that OpenAI can lease a planned 10-gigawatt data center campus in Piketon, Ohio. The site is being developed by SoftBank's SB Energy subsidiary. It's worth noting upfront: no deal has been signed, the terms as reported could still change, and the arrangement could collapse entirely before anything is finalized.
What's Reportedly Being Discussed
According to unnamed sources cited by the Journal, the roughly $250 billion figure would cover a lease guarantee, while a separate and reportedly larger discussion, said to be in the range of $350 billion or more, involves financing the chips that would fill the facility. Taken together, some estimates suggest the combined financing arrangement could exceed $500 billion. The reported rationale for needing a guarantor at all stems from OpenAI's lack of an investment-grade credit rating, which reportedly makes third-party backing a prerequisite for a lease of this scale. All of these figures are attributed to unnamed sources and have not been confirmed on the record by any of the companies involved.
Independent Confirmation Status
Reuters has stated it could not independently confirm the Journal's reporting. Nvidia, OpenAI, and the U.S. Commerce Department have not confirmed these details on record. Given this, the story should be treated as developing rather than established fact, and readers should expect terms, figures, or even the deal's existence to potentially shift as more reporting emerges.
Scale of the Guarantee vs. Nvidia's Financial Position
Independently verifiable filings offer useful context for weighing the scale of the reported guarantee. Nvidia's most recent quarterly filing caps its maximum gross exposure across partner facility lease guarantees at $3.5 billion, meaning a $250 billion guarantee would be roughly 71 times that disclosed limit. Nvidia held $62.6 billion in cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities as of its fiscal 2026 close, making the reported guarantee figure about four times its cash position. For additional context, Nvidia reported full-year revenue of $215.9 billion and net income of $117 billion for fiscal 2026. Separately, and confirmed through earlier reporting from February 2026, Nvidia has already invested roughly $30 billion in OpenAI as an equity stake, a detail relevant to understanding the companies' existing financial relationship.
The Piketon, Ohio Site
The proposed campus location carries a notable history. The Piketon site operated as a uranium enrichment facility from 1954 to 2001, part of Cold War-era nuclear infrastructure. It sits on federal land and reportedly remains under some degree of decontamination. SB Energy broke ground at the site in March, with a first phase of roughly 800 megawatts targeted for completion in 2028, as part of a larger buildout toward the planned 10-gigawatt capacity.
Circularity and Risk Concerns Raised by Critics
A recurring concern in coverage of this story centers on what some critics describe as a circularity problem: Nvidia, as the dominant supplier of AI chips, would be financing the very demand that drives purchases of its own hardware. Investor Michael Burry and commentator Ed Zitron have been sharply critical of the arrangement as reported, though these remain individual opinions rather than settled conclusions. Many observers note that this fits into a broader pattern across the technology sector, where research has estimated off-balance-sheet AI infrastructure commitments among major companies at roughly $1.65 trillion. Whether this concentration of financing represents sound strategy or excessive risk remains a matter of active debate, and no regulatory body has issued findings on the matter as of this reporting.
Wider Context
The reported talks come as OpenAI has raised its own projected computing infrastructure spending to approximately $750 billion through 2030. Separately, the U.S. Department of Energy has announced a partnership aimed at supporting affordable energy and power access for AI infrastructure projects nationally. Reporting has also referenced a Japanese investment commitment tied to a natural-gas power project associated with the site, though the precise structure and status of that commitment has not been independently verified in the reporting reviewed here.
Taken as a whole, this remains an unconfirmed and evolving story. The scale of the figures involved, the unresolved credit questions around OpenAI, and the unusual site history all warrant continued scrutiny, but readers should treat the core financial claims as reported rather than established until named sources or on-the-record confirmation emerges.