NVIDIA plans to provide US$250 billion in financial guarantee for OpenAI data center project

On July 27, the Wall Street Journal reported that NVDA.O is negotiating to provide approximately US$250 billion in financial guarantees for OpenAI to support a huge data center project-which will become the most ambitious financial transaction in the U.S. artificial intelligence boom. According to people familiar with the matter, Nvidia's guarantee will help OpenAI lease a 10-gigawatt (GW) data center project SoftBank is developing in southern Ohio. The total cost of the project, including chips deployed in the data center, could exceed US$500 billion and will become the largest data center project announced to date. Electricity for the project is controlled by the U.S. government and funded separately by Japan under recent trade agreements. U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutnik is involved in power distribution decisions. Under the arrangement, Nvidia will provide guarantees for a range of financing instruments to enhance lenders 'confidence in the safety of project funds. Terms have not yet been finalized and the deal could still fall apart. The $250 billion guarantee will cover debt needed for data center leasing and construction, but not the Nvidia chips included. (Jin Shi)