Nvidia Backstop Talks Add Credit Risk To OpenAI’s 10-Gigawatt Ohio Campus
CNBC confirmed talks over a Nvidia credit backstop of up to $250 billion for OpenAI’s planned 10-gigawatt Ohio AI data centre campus, with lease and construction debt separate from chip purchases.
A proposed Nvidia credit backstop of up to $250 billion would shift part of OpenAI’s AI infrastructure plan from a chip-supply story to a debt-financing test, as the guarantee under discussion would support lease and construction debt for a planned 10-gigawatt data centre campus in Pike County, Ohio.
The structure under discussion would allow the AI developer to raise debt against the chipmaker’s credit rather than carry the lease and construction borrowing alone.
The talks remain in progress and could change.
Backstop Would Cover Lease And Construction Debt
A person familiar with the discussions indicated that the financing support applies to site lease obligations and construction borrowing.
The Nvidia chips planned for the campus are part of separate negotiations outside the credit guarantee described for the Ohio site.
The Pike County campus would utilize land that once functioned as a uranium-enrichment plant.
The same person placed the possible total cost above $500 billion, while a CNBC analysis of Energy Information Administration data framed 10 gigawatts as roughly equivalent to the annual power consumption of 8 million U.S. households.
Power access and debt capacity now sit alongside GPU supply in OpenAI’s infrastructure plan for ChatGPT and future model services.
Anthropic, Google, Amazon, and Meta are also investing heavily in AI infrastructure, leaving data centre sites, power access, and financing structures as constraints alongside chip availability.
Prior Nvidia Investment Did Not Materialise
A September strategic partnership included a possible Nvidia investment of up to $100 billion in OpenAI and a deployment target of at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems.
This investment did not materialise, and Huang noted during the company’s November earnings call that Nvidia’s $30 billion participation in OpenAI’s March funding round might be its last investment in the AI company before a public listing.
A June confidential IPO filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission remains without an official listing timetable, and CNBC placed OpenAI’s private-investor valuation at nearly $1 trillion.
Ohio Campus Depends On Financing And Power Delivery
SoftBank and SB Energy are developing the Ohio campus with the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Japanese investor is also a major OpenAI backer, and its separate SB Energy plan with OpenAI covers a proposed $1 billion investment.
The financing talks have not produced final terms.
The companies have not announced a binding lease, construction-debt close, or chip-purchase agreement for the Pike County project.
