On July 27, according to multiple media reports including CCTV Finance, NVIDIA is in negotiations with OpenAI regarding a financing guarantee of approximately $250 billion. The funds would support OpenAI's lease of a 10-gigawatt data center campus in Ohio, developed by a SoftBank-owned energy company.
The total construction cost of the project is expected to exceed $500 billion (including chip procurement and other investments within the campus). NVIDIA's guarantee would cover lease and construction debt, while chip arrangements would be negotiated separately. This would help OpenAI leverage NVIDIA's strong credit rating to raise debt financing.
The 10 gigawatts of power is roughly equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of approximately 8 million American households, according to sources. If the deal is reached, OpenAI would take a critical step toward independently controlling its dedicated compute infrastructure, while NVIDIA would secure future chip orders for years to come.
Meanwhile, NVIDIA is playing multiple roles in the AI supply chain simultaneously: chip supplier, investor, and financing guarantor. Market attention to its financing model is intensifying. ICE Data Services data showed NVIDIA's five-year credit default swap (CDS) spread widened approximately 14 basis points intraday, marking the largest single-day increase since the contract became actively traded in November 2025. NVIDIA shares fell 5% on Monday, reducing its market cap to $4.76 trillion, with Apple reclaiming the global market cap top spot at $4.95 trillion.
A $250 billion financing guarantee means AI infrastructure financing has reached the scale of "national projects." However, NVIDIA's multiple roles as "chip supplier + investor + guarantor" are leading the market to reassess the structural risks on its balance sheet. The surge in CDS spreads and the sharp share price decline are direct reflections of these concerns.