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Nvidia weighs $250 billion backstop for OpenAI’s Ohio data center project

Nvidia weighs $250 billion backstop for OpenAI’s Ohio data center project

The proposed guarantee would support lease and construction debt for a 10-gigawatt Pike County campus that could cost more than $500 billion, as OpenAI and Nvidia also discuss chip deployments separately.

Fact Check
The WSJ exclusive directly states Nvidia is in talks to provide a roughly $250 billion backstop to OpenAI for a 10-gigawatt data center project in southern Ohio developed by SoftBank's energy subsidiary, with total costs potentially exceeding $500 billion — matching every element of the claim. Reuters independently relays the same report, and KuCoin news corroborates the Ohio 10-GW lease and Nvidia's credit-support role. The claim accurately characterizes the deal as unfinalized talks, consistent with the sources. The only caveat is that this remains a report of ongoing negotiations rather than a confirmed transaction.
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Summary

OpenAI is discussing with Nvidia a backstop of up to $250 billion to help finance a planned 10-gigawatt AI data center campus in Pike County, Ohio, a project that could cost more than $500 billion in total. The proposed guarantee would allow OpenAI to raise debt using Nvidia’s credit support and would cover lease and construction debt rather than the Nvidia chips for the site, which are being discussed separately. The campus is being developed by SoftBank and SB Energy in partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy at a former uranium-enrichment plant, and the talks remain ongoing and subject to change. The negotiations add detail to earlier reporting on Nvidia’s possible role in the Ohio buildout and underscore how the AI infrastructure race increasingly depends on financing, electricity and long-term site control as OpenAI seeks more computing capacity amid intensifying competition.

Terms & Concepts
  • backstop: A financial guarantee or support arrangement that helps a borrower raise funding by reducing lender risk.
  • gigawatt: A unit of power equal to 1 billion watts, used here to describe the electricity capacity of a data center campus.