Nvidia halves the OpenAI backstop, and the buildout's credit now moves with its share price

Nvidia has proposed initially backstopping only half of its 10GW data centre project with OpenAI, down from a guarantee of $250bn covering the whole thing, and deciding about the remainder later, according to Anissa Gardizy's 14 August report for the Wall Street Journal ^[1][2]. The Journal says the change was made to address investor concerns about Nvidia's own risk exposure ^[3], which states plainly what the lenders already knew: the debt behind the largest data centre project announced anywhere is priced against one chipmaker's balance sheet ^[4][5].

The structure explains the size of the promise. OpenAI has no investment-grade credit rating, so lenders were being asked to price the debt against Nvidia's instead ^[5]. Total project cost passes $500bn once the silicon is counted, and a first phase of roughly 800MW is due for completion in 2028 ^[6][7], about 8% of the announced capacity ^[1]. SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary, is developing the site ^[8], and Reuters reported the same evening that OpenAI is still negotiating a binding lease for the full 10GW ^[9].

This desk reported the $250bn backstop on 27 July, the day after the Journal broke it, when it would have been the largest financial guarantee ever discussed between two private companies ^[10][11]. Nvidia shares fell 5% after that first report ^[12], and the guarantee is now under half the size ^[13]. Nothing about the Ohio campus changed in three weeks ^[14]. At $250bn the promise covered roughly half the project cost; under the new terms it covers less than a quarter ^[2]. It is also the second trim of the same partnership: a September agreement covering at least 10GW, with Nvidia investing up to $100bn, stalled after some inside Nvidia expressed doubts ^[15].

What remains is substantial but softer. A separate agreement to finance OpenAI's chip purchases could total $350bn across the full project, money Nvidia would help arrange rather than guarantee outright ^[16]. Goldman Sachs is advising SB Energy and Morgan Stanley is advising Nvidia ^[17]. The power is the uncontested part: the US government controls it and Japan funds it separately under a recent trade deal ^[18].

On the same day, Nvidia filed a 13F disclosing its US equity holdings for the quarter ended 30 June ^[19]. Intel was the larger position at 214.8 million shares worth about $30bn, built from a $5bn investment and worth roughly $9.5bn a quarter earlier ^[20][21], a paper gain of about $25bn ^[3] on a foundry recovery Nvidia bought into rather than engineered ^[22]. SpaceX was second, at 122.8 million Class A shares worth roughly $21bn ^[23]. Both have since fallen. SpaceX closed at $140 on Friday against $170.86 at the end of June, down about 18% ^[24][4], leaving that stake near $17.2bn and Intel's near $22bn ^[25], or roughly $12bn of value gone in six weeks on paper ^[26].

That is the link between the two filings. The balance sheet tolerance that makes a 10GW lease financeable is itself marked to markets that reprice weekly, and both of the big holdings buy Nvidia chips ^[27]; Musk has said SpaceX will use Nvidia silicon exclusively and expects a significant allocation of Vera Rubin GPUs next year ^[28].

Watch whether the deal is signed, which the Journal said could happen as soon as this weekend ^[29], and on what terms the unguaranteed half is settled later. Watch the binding lease for the full 10GW ^[9]. And note that the provenance of the SpaceX stake is disputed: CNBC traces it to a $10bn Nvidia investment in xAI in January, part of a $20bn round, while Bloomberg reports as much as $2bn put into xAI during 2025 through a special purpose vehicle mixing equity and debt to buy Nvidia processors ^[30][31]. SpaceX acquired xAI in February at $1.25trn, which is how an xAI position became a SpaceX position ^[32].