Nvidia Guarantees $105 Billion for OpenAI Ohio Data Center

Nvidia has committed to guarantee up to $105 billion in lease obligations for a massive 8-gigawatt data center campus in Pike County, Ohio, where OpenAI will serve as the primary tenant [2]. The deal establishes Nvidia as the financial backstop for one of the largest compute infrastructure projects ever disclosed, ensuring the site will exclusively utilize Nvidia’s DSX AI factory platform [2].

Financial structure and site scope

The agreement, detailed in an August 2026 SEC filing, functions as a residual value guaranty rather than a direct loan [2]. Nvidia’s $105 billion cap covers lease obligations for approximately 4.25 gigawatts of IT load, with the option to extend support to an additional 3.8 gigawatts at its discretion [2]. These obligations are triggered only if OpenAI defaults or becomes insolvent, and they expire if OpenAI achieves a satisfactory credit rating or upon the 20th anniversary of the lease [2].

The project is located at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a site currently undergoing reindustrialization [2]. SB Energy, the developer, plans to power the campus through a mix of energy sources, including at least 9.2 gigawatts of natural gas, with $4.2 billion in transmission infrastructure upgrades funded by the project to avoid impacting local utility rates [2]. This scale significantly exceeds other major infrastructure efforts, such as the 5-gigawatt expansion planned by Meta in Louisiana [1].

Strategic shift for Nvidia

This deal marks a departure from Nvidia’s traditional role as a hardware vendor, positioning the company as a strategic guarantor of the physical infrastructure required to run its chips [2]. By securing exclusive rights to the 8-gigawatt campus, Nvidia ensures a long-term, high-capacity home for its GPUs, CPUs, and networking hardware [2]. The company is also making a direct $1.5 billion equity investment in SB Energy, further deepening its involvement in the project’s development [2].

The current $105 billion guarantee is substantially lower than earlier reports that suggested a potential $250 billion commitment [1, 2]. The final structure reflects a more targeted financial arrangement that settles the equity portion at half of the previously discussed $3 billion maximum [2]. For OpenAI, the Ohio site represents a critical expansion of its infrastructure portfolio, following its seven-year, $38 billion cloud partnership with AWS signed in November 2025 [2].

What to watch

• Quarterly Disclosure: The full text of the guaranty agreements is expected to be filed as an exhibit to Nvidia’s quarterly report for the period ending July 26, 2026 [2].
• Phase One Launch: The first phase of the campus is scheduled to come online in 2028, marking the first test of the site’s ready-for-service requirements [2].
• Regulatory Oversight: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick remains a key figure in determining power access at the site, with other major tech firms, including Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google, having expressed interest in the location [1].

The project underscores the intensifying competition for power and land, as AI developers move to secure dedicated, large-scale infrastructure to sustain their compute-heavy models. Whether this model of vendor-backed leasing becomes a standard for future hyperscale data centers remains the primary question for the industry.