A proposed financial arrangement between Nvidia and OpenAI would mark one of the largest private capital commitments in technology history, according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and CNBC. Nvidia is in discussions to provide a roughly $250 billion financial guarantee that would allow OpenAI to lease a 10-gigawatt data center campus being developed by SoftBank’s SB Energy in Pike County, Ohio.
The structure of the deal reflects the unusual economics of the AI buildout. OpenAI needs vast computing capacity to train and run its next-generation models, but does not have the balance sheet to finance a $500 billion-plus data center project on its own. Nvidia, which would supply the GPUs for the facility, is considering guaranteeing the debt so that OpenAI can borrow against the chipmaker’s credit rating rather than its own. A separate $350 billion financing arrangement for chips at the same site is also under discussion.
The Ohio campus would be the largest data center ever built. The first phase, expected online around 2028, would deliver approximately 800 megawatts of capacity. Full buildout to 10 gigawatts would make the facility roughly ten times the size of the largest existing data centers. The site sits on Department of Energy land, a location chosen for its access to abundant power infrastructure.
For Nvidia, the guarantee represents both an opportunity and a risk. The chipmaker would effectively tie its balance sheet to OpenAI’s ability to pay back the debt, creating a financial dependency that goes far beyond a typical supplier-customer relationship. If OpenAI succeeds, Nvidia locks in a decades-long revenue stream for GPU sales to the largest AI training facility on earth. If OpenAI stumbles, Nvidia would be on the hook for hundreds of billions in guarantees.
The arrangement signals how AI infrastructure financing is evolving beyond the traditional model where hyperscalers build their own data centers. OpenAI, despite being the highest-profile AI company in the world, does not own its compute infrastructure; it leases capacity from Microsoft and others. The Ohio deal, if completed, would give OpenAI its own dedicated computing foundation while transferring much of the financial risk to Nvidia.
The talks are described as advanced but not finalized. Neither Nvidia nor OpenAI has commented publicly on the negotiations. The scale of the potential commitment has drawn attention from regulators and policymakers who are already scrutinizing the concentration of AI compute resources in a small number of companies.
Sources: Nvidia considers $250bn backstop for OpenAI’s planned 10GW Ohio data center (Data Center Dynamics, July 27, 2026); Nvidia and OpenAI in talks for up to $250 billion AI backstop (CNBC, July 27, 2026); OpenAI Seeks $250 Billion NVIDIA Guarantee For Ohio Data Center (HotHardware, July 27, 2026); Nvidia weighs $250 billion guarantee so OpenAI can lease SoftBank’s 10-gigawatt Ohio campus (Tom’s Hardware, July 28, 2026)