Nvidia has cut its financing guarantee for OpenAI’s planned Ohio data center from $250 billion to under $120 billion, according to The Wall Street Journal. The revised backstop covers roughly the first 5 gigawatts of a 10-gigawatt campus. At the same time, Nvidia is in talks to invest up to $3 billion in SB Energy, the SoftBank unit building it.
The Nvidia OpenAI data center guarantee is now roughly half what it was three weeks ago. Nothing about the physical project changed. What changed was how much risk Nvidia’s own shareholders were willing to let the company carry.
That distinction matters more than the headline number.
What exactly did Nvidia change?
Nvidia reduced the credit guarantee it would provide behind OpenAI’s lease of the Ohio campus. The Wall Street Journal reported the figure fell from up to $250 billion to less than $120 billion. The smaller backstop now covers only about the first 5 gigawatts of the 10-gigawatt site.
A backstop is not cash. It is a promise: if OpenAI cannot pay the lease, Nvidia does.
That promise is what makes the project financeable. Lenders will not underwrite a $500 billion buildout against an unprofitable tenant. They will underwrite it against Nvidia’s balance sheet.
The numbers, before and after
| Item | Reported July 27, 2026 | Reported August 14–15, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Lease guarantee from Nvidia | Up to $250 billion | Under $120 billion |
| Capacity covered | Full 10 GW campus | First ~5 GW |
| Separate chip financing discussed | ~$350 billion | Not restated |
| Nvidia equity stake in SB Energy | Not discussed | Up to $3 billion, in talks |
| Status of OpenAI lease | In negotiation | Still not binding |
Reuters reported that OpenAI has still not signed a binding lease for the full project. That is worth holding onto. Every figure above describes a deal that does not yet legally exist.
Why did Nvidia scale the guarantee back?
Investors pushed back. According to the Journal’s reporting, the change followed concerns about Nvidia’s risk exposure tied to very large financing commitments on projects that are not yet operating. The company trimmed the obligation rather than defend it.
This is the part worth pausing on.
Nvidia’s fiscal 2026 revenue was $215.9 billion with net income of $117 billion, and it held $62.6 billion in cash and equivalents as of January 25. A $250 billion contingent obligation is larger than the company’s entire annual revenue. Halving it does not make it small.
The circular-financing problem nobody has solved
Nvidia sells chips. Nvidia also funds the companies that buy the chips. As The Next Web noted, Nvidia spent more than $40 billion on equity positions in the first four months of 2026, and almost all of it went to firms that purchase its hardware.
Nvidia’s Q2 2026 13F filing, submitted August 14, showed 122.8 million SpaceX Class A shares worth roughly $21 billion and 214.8 million Intel shares worth about $30 billion, the latter built from an initial $5 billion investment.
Revenue that depends on capital you supplied is not the same quality of revenue as a customer paying from their own cash flow. That is the honest read, and it applies whether the guarantee is $250 billion or $120 billion.
What is the Ohio data center campus?
SB Energy, a SoftBank Group company, is developing a 10-gigawatt campus at the Portsmouth site in Pike County, Ohio, on federal land owned by the US Department of Energy. Data Center Dynamics reports a first phase of roughly 800 megawatts targeted to begin operating in 2028.
Full build-out is estimated at $500 billion. Ground was broken in March 2026.
If completed, it would be the largest data center project ever announced.
Power, not silicon, is the binding constraint
The energy math is the story underneath the story. The project requires roughly 9.2 gigawatts of new natural gas generation, plus about $4.2 billion of transmission work with AEP Ohio, according to reporting on the plan.
Chips arrive in months. Gas turbines and transmission lines take years.
- 10 GW — total planned campus capacity
- 800 MW — first phase, targeted for 2028
- 9.2 GW — new gas generation required
- $4.2 billion — transmission work with AEP Ohio
- $500 billion — estimated cost at full build-out
This is why the money is moving toward power developers rather than pure compute. It is the same shift that has been reshaping the largest corporate capex commitments in AI.
Why is Nvidia buying a stake in SB Energy?
The Information reported that Nvidia is negotiating an investment of up to $3 billion in SB Energy, structured roughly 50/50: about $1.5 billion at signing, the rest tied to SB Energy’s planned IPO. Goldman Sachs is advising SB Energy; Morgan Stanley is advising Nvidia.
SB Energy could go public as soon as September 2026, seeking to raise at least $5 billion.
Read the two moves together and a pattern appears. Nvidia is swapping an open-ended contingent liability for a defined equity position — less downside exposure, more upside participation.
The timing is not an accident
Trimming a guarantee weeks before your partner’s IPO is a signal to public-market buyers about how much of the project’s credit risk sits with a third party. A cleaner structure is easier to price.
Whether it is easier to sell is a different question. SoftBank carries more than $130 billion in debt.
Who profits from this?
Nvidia announced partnerships with six major financial institutions this week to build compute financing platforms, part of an effort to mobilize more than $500 billion in third-party capital for AI infrastructure. The direction of travel is clear: move the risk off Nvidia’s books and onto someone else’s.
Banks earn fees. SoftBank monetizes an asset. Utilities and gas turbine makers get multi-year order books.
OpenAI, valued at $852 billion after its record $122 billion raise in March 2026, gets compute it could not finance alone — while remaining unprofitable, with projected compute spending of roughly $750 billion through 2030.
Why this matters
The AI trade has quietly become a credit trade. The bottleneck is no longer model quality or chip supply; it is who will underwrite twelve-figure obligations against tenants that do not yet generate profit.
When the largest supplier in the industry halves its own guarantee under shareholder pressure, that is a data point about the market’s appetite for that risk. It is not a collapse. It is a repricing.
Watch three things: whether the binding lease is signed, whether SB Energy’s IPO clears at target size, and whether other vendors follow Nvidia in shifting from guarantees to equity. Similar structural pressure is visible across the global chip supply chain and in how private AI companies such as Databricks and Anthropic are raising capital.
This article is reporting and analysis, not financial advice.
Frequently asked questions
How much did Nvidia cut the OpenAI data center guarantee?
From up to $250 billion down to less than $120 billion, per The Wall Street Journal. The revised amount covers roughly the first 5 gigawatts of the planned 10-gigawatt Ohio campus.
Is the OpenAI Ohio lease signed?
No. Reuters reported that OpenAI was still negotiating a binding lease for the full project as of mid-August 2026. Reports suggested a signing could come as soon as that weekend.
What is SB Energy?
SB Energy is a SoftBank Group company founded in 2019 that develops power generation and data center campuses. OpenAI and SoftBank each invested $500 million in it in January 2026.
When is the SB Energy IPO?
Reports indicate SB Energy could list as soon as September 2026, targeting a raise of at least $5 billion. No prospectus terms have been confirmed publicly.
Why does a chipmaker guarantee a lease at all?
Because lenders will not finance a $500 billion project against an unprofitable tenant. Nvidia’s credit makes the debt cheaper, which accelerates construction and, ultimately, chip orders.
What is circular financing in AI?
It describes vendors funding their own customers. Nvidia spent over $40 billion on equity in early 2026, largely in companies that buy its hardware, which makes some of its revenue partly self-financed.
How big is the Ohio project compared with others?
At 10 gigawatts and an estimated $500 billion, it would be the largest data center project announced to date if completed. The first 800-megawatt phase is targeted for 2028.
The bottom line
Nvidia did not walk away. It renegotiated its exposure downward by more than $130 billion and replaced part of it with an equity stake it can sell.
That is a rational trade for Nvidia. It is a harder one for everyone downstream, because the capital that Nvidia stopped guaranteeing has to come from somewhere — banks, bond markets, or public IPO buyers who will price the risk more honestly than a vendor guarantee ever did.
The next two data points are the binding lease and the SB Energy listing. If both land on schedule, the buildout continues on cheaper terms. If either slips, the market will learn what a 10-gigawatt campus is worth without a chipmaker’s signature behind it.
Sources
- Reuters — Nvidia scales back funding guarantee for Ohio OpenAI data center, WSJ reports
- CNBC — Nvidia eyes investing $3 billion in SoftBank’s SB Energy
- Data Center Dynamics — OpenAI in talks to lease 10GW data center from SB Energy in Ohio
- CNBC — Nvidia and OpenAI in talks for up to $250 billion backstop
- The Next Web — Nvidia halved its $250bn promise to OpenAI
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