Nvidia plans to provide $250 billion in financial guarantees for OpenAI's data center project.

According to The Wall Street Journal, NVIDIA (NVDA.O) is in negotiations to provide OpenAI with approximately $250 billion in financial guarantees to support a massive data center project—one of the largest financial transactions in the U.S. artificial intelligence boom. Sources familiar with the matter revealed that NVIDIA’s guarantee will help OpenAI lease the 10-gigawatt (GW) data center project SoftBank is developing in southern Ohio. The total cost of the project, including chips deployed within the data center, could exceed $500 billion, making it the largest data center project ever announced. The project’s power is controlled by the U.S. government, with Japan providing separate funding under a recent trade agreement. U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo participated in power allocation decisions. Under the arrangement, NVIDIA will guarantee a series of financing instruments to strengthen lenders’ confidence in the project’s funding security. Terms have not been finalized, and the deal could still collapse. The $250 billion guarantee will cover debt required for the data center’s leasing and construction, but not NVIDIA’s chips installed in the facility.