Nvidia has sharply scaled back the financial guarantee it plans to provide for OpenAI's proposed data center project in Ohio, cutting the commitment from roughly $250 billion to less than $120 billion, according to a Wall Street Journal exclusive.

Reuters confirmed the report on Friday, citing the WSJ story. The revision, described by the Journal as an initial position, is intended to address investors' concerns about the level of risk the chipmaker would absorb in what had been shaping up as one of the most ambitious financial transactions of the AI buildout era. For coverage of the megadeals reshaping AI infrastructure, follow AI Buzz Wire.

What Changed

Under the revised plan, Nvidia is now expected to initially guarantee less than $120 billion for the Ohio project — less than half the figure under discussion when the Journal first revealed the talks. The original arrangement, as reported by the WSJ, would have seen Nvidia provide a roughly $250 billion backstop for OpenAI as part of a massive data center development, a structure the paper described as one of the most ambitious financial transactions yet in America's AI infrastructure push.

The word "initially" matters. The guarantee could still grow over time, but the smaller opening commitment reduces the balance-sheet exposure Nvidia takes on before the project proves itself — a concession to shareholders who have grown uneasy about the scale of the chipmaker's financial entanglements with its own customers.

Why Investors Balked

A guarantee of this size effectively ties a portion of Nvidia's creditworthiness to OpenAI's ability to pay for computing capacity over many years. In practice, such a backstop is designed to reassure lenders and equipment financiers that if the project's revenues fall short, Nvidia stands behind the shortfall — converting a customer relationship into a long-term contingent liability on the chipmaker's balance sheet.

That exposure became a flashpoint as investors sharpened their scrutiny of so-called circular financing across the AI economy — deals in which chipmakers, cloud providers, and AI labs invest in and underwrite one another, inflating demand signals for everyone's benefit.

The concern is not abstract. Nvidia has spent the past year positioning itself as a financial engine for the AI buildout, not just a supplier. PYMNTS reported this week that Goldman Sachs is mobilizing investors for Nvidia's $500 billion AI infrastructure financing initiative — an effort the outlet described as part of Nvidia's push to dispel talk of an AI investment bubble. Pensions & Investments framed the arrangement as a partnership among six asset giants signaling "the next AI investment era."

In that context, a $250 billion guarantee for a single customer — even one growing as fast as OpenAI — tested the limits of what Nvidia's own investor base would tolerate. Scaling it back to under $120 billion keeps the Ohio project alive while shrinking the worst-case scenario on Nvidia's books.

The Bigger Picture

The retreat comes amid an otherwise expansive week for Nvidia's ambitions. The company disclosed a $21 billion stake in SpaceX at the end of the second quarter, CNBC reported, and UPI reported that LG and Nvidia are expanding their alliance across robots, AI factories, and mobility.

The recalibration also lands days after OpenAI's annualized revenue run rate topped $40 billion — a milestone confirmed by CNBC — which strengthens the lab's ability to service the enormous financing behind its data center pipeline. OpenAI's compute commitments remain among the largest in the industry, and Georgia regulators are still reviewing a major power supply contract tied to its buildout, Georgia Public Broadcasting reported.

What It Means for the AI Buildout

The revised guarantee is not a retreat from the AI infrastructure boom — it is a repricing of risk within it. Nvidia is still betting enormous sums that OpenAI's data centers will get built and filled with its chips. But the company is now doing so in increments its shareholders can stomach, and with more of the funding burden shared among banks, asset managers, and OpenAI itself.

For the broader market, the message is twofold. First, the era of headline-sized AI financing commitments is meeting resistance from the people who ultimately fund them. Second, the deals are still getting done — at smaller initial sizes, with more partners, and with structures designed to survive an audit.

The story traveled fast through financial markets on Friday: beyond Reuters, the report was picked up by outlets from TradingView to The Korea Times, a measure of how closely global investors are watching the financing structures behind the AI boom. With OpenAI reportedly operating under a confidential SEC filing and Nvidia answerable to its own shareholders every quarter, the era of informal, endlessly flexible mega-commitments between AI labs and their biggest supplier is giving way to harder numbers and enforceable terms.

How OpenAI's Ohio project proceeds under the slimmer guarantee, and whether Nvidia's $500 billion infrastructure initiative absorbs similar pushback, will say a great deal about how the next phase of the AI buildout gets financed.

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