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Symbolic image: Nvidia in talks to guarantee $250bn for OpenAI data centre in OhioSymbolic image

Nvidia in talks to guarantee $250bn for OpenAI data centre in Ohio

4 sources

Nvidia is reported to be negotiating funding guarantees worth about $250 billion so that OpenAI can lease a 10-gigawatt data centre being built in Piketon, Ohio, by SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy. The account originates with the Wall Street Journal; neither Nvidia nor OpenAI has commented in the available material. The Journal separately reports that Nvidia is investing in Ilya Sutskever's new AI lab, extending its reach over future computing demand.

What happened

According to a Wall Street Journal report carried by Al Jazeera, Handelsblatt and FAZ, Nvidia is in talks with OpenAI to guarantee roughly $250 billion in financing. The money would cover the lease of a 10-gigawatt data centre that SB Energy, a subsidiary of SoftBank, is building in Piketon, Ohio, 68 miles (109 km) south of Columbus.

Al Jazeera reports the project could cost more than $500 billion once the chips inside it are counted. The guarantee under discussion covers the lease only, not the chips, which the outlet puts at a further $350 billion; Nvidia has said it is in talks about that portion as well. The site is expected to deliver as much as 800 megawatts by 2028, enough to power 640,000 homes, with electricity coming from a separate $33 billion US government deal with Japan for a natural gas plant.

The facility is described as a public-private partnership in which the US Department of Energy allowed SoftBank to build on leased land. The Information reported in June that OpenAI had signed a potential 20-year lease. Ohio has 166 operational data centres and 57 more planned, the fourth largest concentration in the United States after Virginia, Texas and California. No figure or term has been confirmed by either company.

The camps

Nvidia and OpenAI have not commented publicly in the material available, so the terms rest on reporting rather than on statements by the parties. Nvidia's position is visible only through its conduct: Al Jazeera notes it said in 2025 it would invest $100 billion in OpenAI to build data centres using its chips, and pledged a further $30 billion in early 2026. For OpenAI, the deal would end its dependence on renting capacity from Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft.

Critics quoted by Al Jazeera see circular financing. An associate dean at Boston College argued that OpenAI needs computing power but lacks the revenue to fund it, so Nvidia supplies money that flows back into Nvidia chips, making it unclear where real demand originates. He compared the pattern to 1999, when firms bought from each other and demand looked stronger than it was. Analysts also point to OpenAI's $852 billion valuation despite being unprofitable, and to partners holding as much as $96 billion of debt as of November.

The view from outside

Al Jazeera, reporting from outside the American technology sector, gives the story its widest framing: not only the financing question but a growing political backlash, with US states proposing bans on new data centres. That resistance, the outlet argues, is itself a challenge for Nvidia and the industry, because the build-out depends on land, grid capacity and local consent as much as on capital. German business coverage in Handelsblatt and FAZ treats the guarantee as a corporate finance event and flags it as unconfirmed.

What's new

Until now the topic consisted of a single unconfirmed Journal report, with Bloomberg and Reuters relaying it while crediting the Journal rather than verifying it. What is new is detail rather than confirmation: the location in Piketon, the role of SB Energy and the Department of Energy, the power and cost figures, and the separation between the lease guarantee and the chip financing. Also new is the Journal's separate report that Nvidia is backing Ilya Sutskever's new AI lab, a second route to locking in future demand for its chips. The central claim still rests on one outlet's sourcing.

What could happen next

If the guarantee is signed and disclosed, it would give OpenAI its first large-scale infrastructure of its own and tie Nvidia's balance sheet to a customer that is not yet profitable. Talks could equally end without agreement, or produce a smaller structure, leaving the Ohio project dependent on other tenants and lenders.

Separately, the state-level proposals to ban new data centres could slow or relocate parts of the build-out regardless of how the financing is settled. Continued questions about circular financing may draw attention from investors and regulators to how revenue is recognised between chipmakers, cloud providers and AI developers.

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