Nvidia is considering financial support for OpenAI worth 600 billion dollars (about 881 trillion won). The move aims to strengthen its grip on the artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem through capital as well as hardware by backing OpenAI, which urgently needs to raise investment funds. However, concerns are emerging because the financial guarantees, including commitments to purchase Nvidia chips, constitute a "circular deal" and represent the largest amount ever.
According to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 26th, Nvidia is in talks over financial guarantees worth about 250 billion dollars (about 367 trillion won) for OpenAI. The purpose is to lay the AI infrastructure needed for a data center to be built in Ohio, U.S. In addition, discussions are underway for semiconductor purchase financing support that could reach 350 billion dollars (about 514 trillion won). Separately, Nvidia has directly invested 30 billion dollars (about 44 trillion won) in OpenAI.
Nvidia's plan to provide OpenAI with a "credit wrapper" is aimed at lowering OpenAI's financing interest. OpenAI is a private company that is not yet turning a profit, so it lacks an investment-grade credit rating. By borrowing Nvidia's credit, OpenAI can raise large-scale project financing (PF) at lower rates.
Nvidia has expanded its influence by providing indirect support to companies it does business with through financial guarantees or equity investments rather than direct loans. Earlier, Nvidia supported emerging graphics processing unit (GPU) cloud companies such as CoreWeave. In addition to equity investment, it used methods such as capacity leaseback (sale and re-lease) and lease guarantees. However, it is likely to choose a method that sets up a special purpose company as the borrower, so that the debtor-creditor relationship does not appear on the books of Nvidia or OpenAI. If industry conditions worsen, there is a risk that this could quickly develop into contingent liabilities.
The Ohio data center will be developed by SB Energy, an energy subsidiary led by SoftBank Group (SBG) Chairman Masayoshi Son, and leased by OpenAI. SB Energy plans to build both the data center and a natural gas power plant to supply electricity. The power plant will have a capacity of 10 gigawatts (GW), and the total project cost, including semiconductors, exceeds 500 billion dollars (about 734 trillion won). It is the largest data center development project announced to date.
The U.S. and Japanese governments are also involved in the power supply. The Donald Trump administration controls data center power. In March this year, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Chairman Son, and Energy Secretary Chris Wright attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the data center complex. The Japanese government will invest about 33 billion dollars (about 48 trillion won) in the Ohio natural gas power plant. It is one of Japan's investments in the U.S. aimed at securing tariff reductions. OpenAI has also invested in SB Energy.
In addition to raising funds, OpenAI must also resolve the issue of the Trump administration's tightened control over AI model launches. OpenAI Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sam Altman will visit Washington, D.C. this week. He plans to unveil an undisclosed new AI model to the Trump administration and Congress and request approval for its launch. He is also expected to emphasize that the company has rebuilt its monitoring system in relation to the recently controversial hacking of the new model.
