Nvidia negotiates $250 billion guarantee for OpenAI largest data center

Nvidia backs the biggest AI infrastructure bet

Nvidia would be willing to guarantee $250 billion for OpenAI to finance what would be its first own data center, according to the Wall Street Journal. The project is located on a campus in southern Ohio, currently being developed by SB Energy, SoftBank’s energy subsidiary. With a projected capacity of 10 gigawatts, the entire complex —including semiconductors— could exceed $500 billion, the largest known bet on AI infrastructure to date.

The mechanism being negotiated by Nvidia, led by Jensen Huang, and OpenAI is not a direct transfer of funds but a “guarantee” or credit wrapper: a financial guarantee that would allow OpenAI to access debt on more favorable terms. The company, which does not yet generate profits or have a solid credit rating, needs this backing to finance the leasing and construction of the data center. Chip purchases fall outside this specific agreement; Nvidia is separately negotiating another financing line of up to $350 billion additional for that purpose.

Competition for energy and compute

OpenAI competes with Anthropic, Microsoft and Google to secure energy and processing capacity at the Ohio campus. If completed, it would be the first time the company acts as a direct tenant of a data center, rather than relying on capacity leased from Microsoft, Amazon and Oracle.

The move comes after OpenAI revised upward its projected compute spending through 2030, from $600 billion to about $750 billion. Negotiations are in an early stage and, according to the Journal, “could be modified or undone” before closing. The first phase of the campus, with 800 megawatts of capacity, would not be operational before 2028, a timeline that reflects the scale of the project both companies face.