Nvidia Corp. and OpenAI are discussing a data-center project valued at roughly $500 billion [1].
The scale of the proposal represents a massive expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure to meet the growing compute needs of advanced AI models [3, 2].
Reports indicate Nvidia is in talks to provide a $250 billion financial backstop for the project [2]. This funding would assist OpenAI in leasing a proposed site located about 50 miles south of Columbus, Ohio [1, 2]. The facility is planned to have a power capacity of 10 gigawatts [1], which would make it the largest data center in the world by power capacity [3, 2].
Financing for the endeavor has involved discussions with SBEnergy, a subsidiary of SoftBank Energy [1, 2]. The project aims to create a concentrated hub of computing power to support the next generation of large-scale AI training, and inference.
"Nvidia is in talks to provide a $250 billion financial backstop for OpenAI's proposed 10-gigawatt data center in Ohio," a company spokesperson said [2].
Market analysts have viewed the potential deal as a strategic move for the chipmaker. Jim Cramer said Nvidia is making a very smart investment in OpenAI [3].
The project remains in the discussion phase as the companies coordinate the immense energy and financial requirements of the southern Ohio site [1, 2].
“Nvidia and OpenAI are discussing a data-center project valued at roughly $500 billion.”
This project signals a shift toward 'gigawatt-scale' computing, where the limiting factor for AI progress is no longer just chip architecture but the physical availability of power and land. By providing a financial backstop, Nvidia secures a massive, guaranteed ecosystem for its hardware while OpenAI gains the infrastructure necessary to scale models beyond current constraints.
