Nvidia weighs $250bn backing for OpenAI Ohio data center

Nvidia is discussing a financing guarantee worth $250bn tied to an OpenAI Ohio data center lease, according to The Wall Street Journal. The talks matter because they would help fund one of the largest AI infrastructure projects in the United States while raising fresh questions about how the AI build-out is being financed.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the guarantee would support OpenAI’s lease of a 10-gigawatt project in Piketon, Ohio, being built by SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary. Piketon is about 68 miles south of Columbus.

Al Jazeera reported that the full project could exceed $500bn when the chips inside the facility are included. The site is expected to supply as much as 800 megawatts of electricity by 2028, enough to power 640,000 homes, with power coming through a separate $33bn US government agreement with Japan for a natural gas plant.

What is the Nvidia OpenAI Ohio data center deal?

The reported deal centers on Nvidia guaranteeing financing for OpenAI’s lease at the Ohio site. Al Jazeera reported that the $250bn guarantee would cover the facility lease, while the chips for the data center are valued separately at $350bn.

Nvidia, led by Jensen Huang, is also in talks related to those chips, Al Jazeera reported. OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, has relied on outside cloud and computing providers, including Amazon, Oracle and Microsoft, as demand for AI computing has grown.

The Information reported in June that OpenAI had signed a potential 20-year lease for the Ohio project. The US Department of Energy has described the site as part of a public-private partnership, with SoftBank allowed to build an AI data center on leased federal land.

Ohio is already a major data center state. Pew Research data cited by Al Jazeera showed the state has 166 operating data centers and 57 more planned, ranking fourth in the US behind Virginia, Texas and California.

Why analysts are watching the financing

Some analysts see the arrangement as part of a wider pattern in which AI companies and their suppliers fund one another while also buying one another’s services. Aleksandar Tomic, associate dean at Boston College, told Al Jazeera that OpenAI and other AI developers need computing capacity but may not yet have the revenue to fund the required capital spending on their own.

Tomic said Nvidia’s funding could help customers keep buying Nvidia chips, making it harder to judge how much demand comes from end customers. He compared the situation with late-1990s circular financing, when companies bought from one another and made demand appear stronger than it was.

Michael Monaghan, founder of Founder’s ETF, told Al Jazeera he views the issue differently. He said money moving among companies can also reflect ordinary economic activity rather than circular financing.

OpenAI has made other large commitments tied to its infrastructure plans. Al Jazeera reported that OpenAI said in 2025 it would buy $250bn in cloud services from Microsoft, one of its backers; Nvidia said in 2025 it would invest $100bn in OpenAI data centers that would use Nvidia chips; and Nvidia pledged $30bn to OpenAI in early 2026.

Nvidia shares were down 4.9% in midday trading Monday after the report, according to Al Jazeera. The stock remained up 4% year to date, 11% over the past year and 908% over five years.

Data centers face political pressure

The Ohio plan comes as data center construction draws more political scrutiny. Al Jazeera reported that New York recently became the first US state to impose a one-year moratorium on new large data centers, while at least a dozen other states have considered similar proposals.

In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott called in late June for a ban on data center construction in rural areas, according to Al Jazeera. Democratic US Senate candidate James Talarico proposed ending data center tax breaks, requiring operators to pay for grid costs and giving local communities more control over projects.

A Gallup poll cited by Al Jazeera found that 71% of Americans oppose having a data center built in their area. Nvidia and OpenAI did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests for comment.

This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.