Nvidia halves its Ohio backstop, and the number was set by shareholders

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].