Nvidia Downsizes Plans for $250 Billion Guarantee of OpenAI Data Center
Under new proposed terms, the chip maker would initially backstop only half of the 10-gigawatt project
- Nvidia and OpenAI are nearing a deal to finance an Ohio data-center campus, but Nvidia would initially backstop only half of the project under new terms.
- The revised plan would lower Nvidia’s financial guarantee from $250 billion to less than $120 billion to address investor concerns about risk.
- OpenAI is still in discussions to sign a binding lease for 10 gigawatts of the project, which is being developed by SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy.
Nvidia NVDA -0.06%decrease; down pointing triangle and OpenAI are nearing a deal to finance a large-scale data-center campus in Ohio, but have reworked the deal structure so that Nvidia would initially guarantee only half of the planned multi-hundred-billion-dollar build-out rather than all of it, according to people familiar with the deal.
The revised plan would lower the size of Nvidia’s financial guarantee from $250 billion to less than $120 billion, a change made to address investors’ concerns about the chipmaker’s risk exposure as it wields its balance sheet to bolster demand for its artificial-intelligence chips, some of the people said. A deal could be signed as soon as this weekend. Nvidia shares fell 5% after the Journal first reported the discussions of the $250 billion backstop.
Under the outline now being discussed, Nvidia would provide a financial backstop for the first phase, totaling roughly five gigawatts of power, and then decide later whether or how to finance the remainder. OpenAI is still in discussions to sign a binding lease for 10 gigawatts of the project in the coming days, according to two people familiar with the project.
SB Energy, a subsidiary of Japan’s SoftBank, is developing the 10-gigawatt site, which would be the largest data center project announced to date.
The initial guarantee would cover the data-center lease and debt needed to fund the build-out and lower the project’s borrowing costs by making lenders feel more confident that the funding behind the project is secure, the Journal has reported. Nvidia is discussing a separate deal to finance OpenAI’s purchase of chips, which could total $350 billion across the full project. The power for the project is controlled by the U.S. government and funded separately by Japan under a recent trade deal.
Goldman Sachs is advising SBE on the deal and Morgan Stanley is advising Nvidia, according to people familiar.
This week, Nvidia announced plans to partner with Apollo Global Management, Blackstone, BlackRock, Brookfield Asset Management, Goldman Sachs and KKR to establish “compute financing platforms.” The firms aim to deploy over $500 billion of outside capital in the coming years with the goal of being able to finance chip purchases at “attractive rates.”
Last September, Nvidia and OpenAI announced a memorandum of understanding for Nvidia to build at least 10 gigawatts of computing power for OpenAI, and the chip maker also agreed to invest up to $100 billion to help OpenAI pay for it. But that deal stalled after some inside the chips giant expressed doubts about it, the Journal reported.