Nvidia is in talks to provide a $250 billion financing backstop for OpenAI's massive data center project in southern Ohio.
Nvidia is in talks to provide a roughly $250 billion financing backstop for OpenAI as part of a massive data center project in southern Ohio. The guarantees from Nvidia would help the ChatGPT maker lease a 10-gigawatt project being developed by a unit of SoftBank in Pike County. This project is funded by Japan under a recent trade deal and the power is controlled by the U.S. government. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is involved in deciding who will receive access to the power. OpenAI is among the companies showing the strongest interest in the project, with Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google also in talks with Lutnick. Nvidia's backing would allow the SoftBank unit to raise debt at more favorable terms than it could if OpenAI had no financial backer, since OpenAI is an unprofitable private company without an investment-grade credit rating. The report was reported by The Wall Street Journal, and Reuters could not immediately verify the report.