Nvidia in talks to back $250 billion financing for OpenAI’s mega data centre project: Report

Nvidia is in advanced discussions to provide a financial guarantee worth about $250 billionto support OpenAI’s plans to lease one of the world’s largest artificial intelligence data centre campuses, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal.

The proposed guarantee would back financing for a 10-gigawatt AI data centre campus in Pike County, southern Ohio, being developed by SB Energy, SoftBank’s energy subsidiary. If completed, the project is expected to cost more than $500 billion, making it the largest data centre project announced to date. Discussions are ongoing and no final agreement has been reached.

The arrangement would not involve Nvidia investing $250 billion directly. Instead, the chipmaker would provide a financial guarantee that would reassure lenders backing the project. Such a structure could help OpenAI secure financing on more favourable terms despite the company not having an investment-grade credit rating, the report said.

Separately, Nvidia is also discussing financing for as much as $350 billion worth of AI chipsthat could eventually be deployed at the facility. The chip financing would be separate from the proposed guarantee for the data centre project and would help equip what is expected to become one of the world’s largest AI computing hubs.

The Ohio campus is planned with a total capacity of 10 gigawatts, while its first phase is expected to deliver around 800 megawatts by 2028. At full scale, the site would be capable of supporting hundreds of thousands of advanced AI processors used to train and deploy large language models and other generative AI systems. AI data centres of this scale require extensive power infrastructure, specialised cooling systems and vast clusters of servers to handle the intensive computing workloads needed for frontier AI development.

According to the report, OpenAI is the leading contender to lease the campus, although Google, Microsoft and Anthropic have also expressed interest. The project is being developed by SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary, highlighting the Japanese conglomerate’s expanding role in AI infrastructure through both energy assets and its investment in OpenAI. The Wall Street Journal stated that Nvidia, OpenAI and the US Commerce Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.