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Nvidia reportedly weighs $250B guarantee for OpenAI's Ohio data-center debt

A vendor guarantee this size lets an unprofitable AI lab borrow like a blue-chip, deepening how chipmakers now underwrite their own demand.

• Nvidia is in talks to guarantee about $250 billion of financing for OpenAI's lease of a 10-gigawatt data-center campus in southern Ohio, the Wall Street Journal reported July 26, 2026.
• OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, lacks an investment-grade credit rating as an unprofitable private company, so Nvidia's backing is what would let lenders finance the project at scale.
• The campus is being built by SB Energy, SoftBank's power subsidiary, on a decommissioned uranium-enrichment site near Piketon, Ohio, with the first 800-megawatt phase due in 2028.
• The $250B guarantee covers only the lease and construction debt; Nvidia is separately discussing financing up to $350B of OpenAI's chip purchases, pushing total project costs past $500B.
• Nvidia has already invested $30 billion directly in OpenAI and, the same week, unveiled a separate $500 billion-plus AI infrastructure initiative with South Korea's SK Group.
• The talks build on a September 2025 pact in which Nvidia pledged up to $100 billion to OpenAI for a 10-gigawatt systems rollout — a commitment this new backstop would far exceed.
• The deal exemplifies how AI chipmakers are underwriting their own customers' debt to guarantee hardware demand, a circular financing pattern drawing growing scrutiny from investors and regulators.