Nvidia Negotiates $250 Billion Guarantee for OpenAI Ohio Data Center

Nvidia is negotiating a $250 billion financing guarantee to support a 10-gigawatt data center project in southern Ohio for OpenAI. The backstop aims to provide a SoftBank unit with a larger financing cushion, allowing it to lease the site on more favorable debt terms by pricing risk against the chipmaker rather than the tenant's balance sheet.

This arrangement represents the third attempt by the chipmaker to bankroll OpenAI within a year. Previous efforts included a 2025 letter of intent for $100 billion and a subsequent $30 billion equity stake. The proposed deal has sparked concerns over circular risk, as funds provided by Nvidia are primarily used by OpenAI to purchase Nvidia GPUs.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is currently determining power access for the site. OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google are all competing for access to the project's power capacity.