Nvidia in talks to guarantee $250 billion financing for OpenAI's massive AI datacenter project (reports indicate Ohio location, potential total scale $500B+ including contributed infrastructure)

Nvidia is in talks to provide roughly $250 billion in financing for OpenAI to help the ChatGPT maker lease a 10-gigawatt data center project in Pike County, southern Ohio, being developed by SoftBank's energy subsidiary, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The power for the project is controlled by the U.S. government and funded separately by Japan under a recent trade deal, with U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick involved in determining who will receive access to it.

Reuters could not immediately verify the report. Nvidia, OpenAI, and the U.S. Commerce Department did not respond to requests for comment.

At a March groundbreaking event, SoftBank Group chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son described the proposed $33 billion, 9.2-gigawatt power plant as "bigger than any power plant, I think, in the world … at least in the U.S. for sure. This is the biggest power generation in one location." He outlined plans for at least $500 billion in investment "in one campus" for data center operations, "in one shot," to applause from the few hundred attendees at the invitation-only event held on the grounds of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon.

OpenAI, which has been in advanced talks for several weeks to lease the site, is among the companies showing the strongest interest. Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google have also spoken with Lutnick in recent weeks.

Lutnick has previously expressed confidence in the project's success, noting the significant job creation expected for the region.