Nvidia and OpenAI are in discussions over a backstop of up to $250 billion that would help OpenAI fund a massive artificial intelligence data center in Ohio, CNBC confirmed1.
The backstop would enable OpenAI to raise debt for a 10-gigawatt data center campus in Pike County, Ohio, on the strength of Nvidia's credit, according to a person familiar with the discussions. The guarantee would cover the lease and construction debt, not the Nvidia chips inside the facility, which the two companies are discussing separately. The talks about the site and its financing are in progress and still subject to change.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the negotiations2. The massive compute facility is being developed by SB Energy, a subsidiary of SoftBank. Nvidia lending its backing to OpenAI would enable the AI developer to raise debt at more favorable terms because Nvidia's financial position is stronger than that of unprofitable OpenAI, according to the Journal's reporting.
Nvidia declined to comment.
Nvidia shares fell more than 4% on Monday, alongside weakness across semiconductor stocks and other AI infrastructure names. The CNBC Investing Club analysis characterized the potential backstop as "yet another example of circular deals within the AI buildout," noting that Nvidia has invested in a number of companies that buy its chips.
ANALYSIS The structure of the proposed arrangement — Nvidia guaranteeing debt for a company that is also one of its largest chip customers — underscores the financial interdependence between GPU suppliers and frontier AI labs at the current stage of infrastructure buildout.
A 10-gigawatt campus would represent one of the largest single-site data center developments reported to date, reflecting the scale of compute that leading AI developers are seeking to secure.