Nvidia weighs $3B SB Energy investment behind OpenAI's Ohio campus

The Information reported that Nvidia is in talks to invest up to $3 billion in SB Energy, the SoftBank-backed developer behind OpenAI's planned data center campus in Pike County, Ohio. That campus is planned to reach up to 10GW.

Nvidia has discussed paying $1.5 billion when the Ohio project's commercial agreements are signed. A second $1.5 billion would come as part of SB Energy's planned IPO, which the company signaled in May.

That investment would sit inside a wider support package. Nvidia has discussed extending up to $100 billion in credit support to the campus. The Information estimates the project could cost $500 billion if fully built.

Ground broke in March. The first 800 megawatts are expected online in 2028. That is a full-scale data center campus on its own, and here it is only the opening slice.

AI infrastructure has been drifting onto balance sheets all year. GDS lifted its sales target past one gigawatt and guided to $1.4 billion in capital spending, according to Private Infrastructure Daily. Blackstone's BREIT put $3.3 billion into QTS. The Ohio project is the same trade, just far bigger.

The money behind it comes from three countries and two levels of government. SB Energy has lined up $33.3 billion in Japanese funding. That pays for 9.2GW of new natural gas generation at the site.

The US government will own the power plant. It will be built on Department of Energy land. The land is the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, built in the 1950s to enrich uranium. That work included weapons-grade material for the US nuclear weapons program, Navy submarines, and later commercial reactor fuel. The DOE listed it as one of 16 federal properties suitable for rapid data center construction.

The arrangement is strange even for this cycle. A SoftBank-backed developer holds the lease on federal land. The US government owns the power generation, and Japanese financing pays for the gas turbines. OpenAI is the anchor tenant. Nvidia is the chip supplier, a prospective shareholder, and, if the reported guarantees hold, the financial backstop that makes the project bankable.

According to The Information, Nvidia would guarantee OpenAI's lease at the campus and SB Energy's future project financing. Those guarantees are the larger part of the deal, even if the equity gets the headlines.

In July, reports said Nvidia was discussing a $250 billion backstop for the data center with OpenAI. The point was to let SoftBank borrow on better terms. The numbers have moved. July reports described a $250 billion backstop. The current framework includes up to $100 billion in credit support. There is also a $3 billion equity investment. The gap suggests the terms remain in motion, or the July figure covered a broader set of obligations. Either way, the direction is the same. Nvidia is becoming a credit provider for AI infrastructure.

For investors underwriting these assets, the reporting does not specify where the guarantee ranks among other claims. The existence of it is the point. Nvidia's shares, not the power purchase agreements, may be the strongest collateral on the project. A guarantee from the dominant chip supplier makes the debt cheaper and lowers the returns on that debt. The Ohio project could become the model for how much risk in AI infrastructure shifts from operators to suppliers.

The two-tranche structure gives Nvidia some control over the second $1.5 billion. That second tranche arrives at SB Energy's planned IPO, when the market will have put a number on the developer. Nvidia can decide, with more information, whether to complete the investment. Timing risk cuts the other way too: if the listing slips, that second tranche does not arrive.

Nvidia's money has been spreading across the AI industry. In March it committed $2 billion to cloud provider Nebius. It has made multibillion-dollar investments in Safe Superintelligence and Iren, per The Information. Each position follows a logic: capital flows to companies positioned to buy Nvidia hardware at scale. The SB Energy case makes that logic explicit. OpenAI would use Nvidia hardware at the site, and Nvidia would hold a financial interest in the company building it.

The $500 billion figure is an estimate. It is not a budget. The first 800 megawatts still have to be completed. The gas plant has to be built on federal land. The financing will take years to assemble. The structure under discussion—an equity check at signing, a second check at the IPO, and a guarantee underneath the lease—is how a project of this size becomes financeable at all. The concrete, the turbines, and the 10GW of plans will be the visible assets. The credit is Nvidia.