Nvidia Plans $250 Billion Guarantee for OpenAI to Lease SoftBank's Ohio Data Center

Nvidia is in talks with OpenAI to provide roughly $250 billion in financing guarantees to help OpenAI lease computing power from a large data center project. The project, located in southern Ohio, is being developed by the energy subsidiary of Japan's SoftBank Group and has a planned capacity of 10 gigawatts.

The data center campus's electricity is controlled by the US government and is supported by sole Japanese funding under a recent trade agreement. US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is involved in deciding the allocation of power distribution rights. OpenAI has been in deep negotiations for weeks to lease the site, while Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google have also recently contacted Lutnick.

Under the proposed framework, Nvidia's guarantee would cover the data center's lease costs and the debt financing required for construction, but not the installation of Nvidia chips inside the facility. Since OpenAI is not yet profitable and lacks an investment-grade credit rating, Nvidia's guarantee will help SoftBank's data center developer raise debt capital on more favorable terms. Nvidia has already invested $30 billion in OpenAI. This financing model is described externally as 'circular financing,' whereby companies in which Nvidia invests and takes equity typically also purchase or use Nvidia chips. As of July 26, 2026, Nvidia's stock price had fallen nearly 4%, bringing its total market value to approximately $4.8 trillion.