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Nvidia in Talks With OpenAI to Guarantee $250 Billion Financing for Data Center
The Wall Street Journal ^ | July 26, 2026 7:19 pm ET | Anissa Gardizy , Amrith Ramkumar and Corrie Driebusch

Posted on 07/26/2026 4:55:26 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum

Project would be one of the largest AI computing hubs and involve power controlled by the U.S. government

Nvidia NVDA is in talks to provide a roughly $250 billion backstop for OpenAI as part of a massive data center project, one of the most ambitious financial transactions yet in America’s artificial-intelligence boom.

The guarantees from Nvidia would help the ChatGPT maker lease a 10-gigawatt project that SoftBank’s 9434 energy subsidiary is developing in southern Ohio, people familiar with the matter said. In total, the project could cost more than $500 billion, including the chips that would go inside the data centers. It would be the largest data center project announced to date.

The power for the project is controlled by the U.S. government and funded separately by Japan under a recent trade deal. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is involved in deciding who will get the power, some of the people said.

Nvidia’s backing would allow the data center developer, which is owned by Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son’s investment firm SoftBank, to raise debt at more favorable terms than it could if OpenAI had no financial backer, since OpenAI has no investment-grade credit rating as an unprofitable private company. The AI company has been in advanced talks to lease the site for several weeks, people familiar with the matter said.

OpenAI is among the companies that has shown most interest in the site, while Anthropic, Microsoft and Google have also spoken to Lutnick about it in recent weeks, one of the people said.

AI companies are desperate to secure chips and power needed to run their models, making megaprojects that have government support or guaranteed power increasingly attractive.


(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: ai; datacenters; investing; nvidia

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1 posted on 07/26/2026 4:55:26 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

To put things in perspective - that is 10 times the combined cost of all automobile plants in North America.


2 posted on 07/26/2026 4:58:01 PM PDT by nwrep
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Humans are not going to be able to fight for freedom against all this any more than the protagonists in George Orwell’s novel 1984.

I’m disappointed I was right all along in being a Luddite.
At least at my age 80 I won’t have a life of misery and lack of freedom as long as young people.


3 posted on 07/26/2026 5:18:53 PM PDT by frank ballenger (There's a battle outside and it's raging. It'll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls. )
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Nvidia abandoned it’s customers to do data centers


4 posted on 07/26/2026 5:25:16 PM PDT by butlerweave (Fateh)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

and when OpenAI burns up the $250 billion Nvidia will be back looking for customers , no thanks


5 posted on 07/26/2026 5:28:39 PM PDT by butlerweave (Fateh)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Big surveillance doesn’t exactly grow on trees.


6 posted on 07/26/2026 5:32:31 PM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

AI seems to be largely Out Of Control.

I like Google AI at the moment, but believe it will become contaminated by Commie, woke info going forward.

We’ll see....


7 posted on 07/26/2026 5:33:21 PM PDT by Paladin2 (YMMV)
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To: butlerweave

About a year ago I was thinking that I needed to build a last, lifetime PC.

I could still afford to do so, but parts prices have gone through the roof.

Hopefully, I’ll live long enough to get through this bubble.

The race is ON!


8 posted on 07/26/2026 5:37:00 PM PDT by Paladin2 (YMMV)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

OpenAI is losing $20bil per year while taking in only $13bil.

OpenAI buys NVidia chips.

And leases datacenters built by NVidia.

It’s a circle jerk.


9 posted on 07/26/2026 5:39:18 PM PDT by Mariner (War Criminal #18)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

market research says we need 2 data centers so we build 10


10 posted on 07/26/2026 5:39:31 PM PDT by PeterPrinciple ((Thinking Caps are no longer being issued, but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere))
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Prices for RAM and SSDs will continue to be stiff.

One wonders if the folks at NVIDIA have heard of “The Farmer’s Problem.”


11 posted on 07/26/2026 5:47:48 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: butlerweave

Nvidia is throwing off Around $35–50 billion per quarter recently, with the most recent quarter (Q1 FY2027, ended April 26, 2026) at ~$48.6 billion.
//////
they have to do something with that money. the best way to use it is to enable more datacenters that will buy more chips from nvidia.


12 posted on 07/26/2026 5:48:46 PM PDT by ckilmer (`61)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
This is the biggest house of cards in American history. These companies - except NVDIA - are all losing tens of billions of AI. And even those flimsy financials are cooked. Michael Burry argues that large tech companies are artificially boosting their profits by stretching out the depreciation timeline for Nvidia GPUs from a realistic 2 to 3 years up to 5 to 6 years. He estimates this mismatch will understate depreciation costs by $176 billion between 2026 and 2028. The GPUs will be totally obsolete far short of that 6 year timeframe, and need to be replaced, at the cost of more endless billions.

When this house of cards collapses, it will have become so vital to U.S. national security, that the government will have to bail it out or take it over at the cost of trillions.

13 posted on 07/26/2026 5:49:16 PM PDT by montag813
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

If Viviscammy wins the governor’s race, he will fill this center with Indians.


14 posted on 07/26/2026 5:50:18 PM PDT by montag813
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To: montag813
The entire US economy is now just data center bs. Our politicians have put their fingers on the scale and pushed for more and more such investments. Horrible idea on systems that burn thru cash and get constantly replaced.
15 posted on 07/26/2026 5:59:33 PM PDT by Theoria
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To: Carry_Okie
One wonders if the folks at NVIDIA have heard of “The Farmer’s Problem.”

I couldn't resist the irony of using AI to solve it: https://x.com/i/grok/share/94920891191443ffbea5f1d7481b43ad

16 posted on 07/26/2026 6:14:59 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Israel First. America... who cares?)
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To: Paladin2
About a year ago I was thinking that I needed to build a last, lifetime PC.

I could still afford to do so, but parts prices have gone through the roof.

Back in September 2025, I had spec'ed a nicely loaded desktop PC build for Windows 11 at around $1,400. I ended up upgrading my Windows 10 to Windows 11 instead because I ran out of time against the EOL date of Windows 10.

A month ago, I revisited the parts list for the build I wanted, and after making one small change to replace a minor component (CPU fan) that was no longer available, that PC build would cost around $2,600. Checking today, it's now $2,700. Oof.

17 posted on 07/26/2026 6:24:59 PM PDT by CatOwner (Don't expect anyone, even conservatives, to have your back when the SHTF in 2021 and beyond.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
I'd already done that.

When I'd clicked the link, I was hoping you'd applied the analogy to NVIDIA's investment.

18 posted on 07/26/2026 6:25:47 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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To: CatOwner

Thanks…

I’m coasting for at least a year, I’m guessing.


19 posted on 07/26/2026 6:51:32 PM PDT by Paladin2 (YMMV)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

In the farmer’s problem, a European farmer must allocate 500 acres of land among three different crops (wheat, corn, and sugar beets) aiming to maximize profit. The following information is given:

Planting one acre of wheat, corn and beet costs 150, 230 and 260 euro, respectively.

The mean yields are 2.5, 3.0, and 20.0 tons per acre for wheat, corn, and sugar beets, respectively. The yields can vary up to 20% from nominal conditions depending on weather

....

https://mobook.github.io/MO-book/notebooks/10/04-farmer-problem.html

My college education didn’t include that, so don’t ask me for an answer.

Don’t ask me about most of my college education. All I remember was that the hottest looking chick was Lithuanian.


20 posted on 07/26/2026 7:23:31 PM PDT by Brian Griffin (The data centers might be hunting down guns. Black tape device cameras and PC microphones.)
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