Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang pushed back Monday on the "circular financing" label for Nvidia's support of OpenAI's massive Ohio AI buildout. OpenAI will pay the lease," Huang wrote, adding that OpenAI's broader infrastructure plans could represent roughly $600 billion in Nvidia compute through 2030.
SB Energy, the privately held SoftBank-backed developer behind the project, will build, own and operate the physical infrastructure at PORTS-Pike. Nvidia is investing $1.5 billion in the company. According to OpenAI's announcement, the company has agreed to secure about 8 GW of compute capacity at the campus.
Nvidia's credit support covers the initial 4.25 GW, with an option to extend the arrangement to the remaining 3.75 GW. The campus will exclusively host Nvidia GPUs, CPUs, networking and software. The Wall Street Journal reported that Nvidia had initially considered guaranteeing OpenAI's full data-center commitments upfront, potentially around $250 billion, before the structure was scaled back amid investor concerns over the chipmaker's risk exposure.
Huang framed Nvidia's support as a way to secure scarce infrastructure rather than finance demand. If OpenAI leaves the Ohio site, SB Energy would first seek another tenant or buyer, with Nvidia covering any remaining loss in value up to $105 billion, according to the Journal. Huang also noted that frontier AI labs are "growing faster than their balance sheets and long-term credit profiles can support." Nvidia agreed in February to invest $30 billion in OpenAI.
The Journal also reported that Nvidia has discussed financing OpenAI's purchases of Nvidia chips for the Ohio campus. OpenAI says it expects to fund its lease commitments through revenue, cash flow and investor capital. Polymarket traders currently give OpenAI about a 20% chance of completing an IPO this year, suggesting private capital may remain central to the buildout.
OpenAI's existing and planned Nvidia deployments total about 12 GW of compute, potentially rising to 16 GW if Nvidia expands its Ohio commitment. Huang estimates that could represent roughly $600 billion in Nvidia compute through 2030. The economics also assume repeat business.
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