Nvidia is reportedly in advanced talks to provide around $250 billion in financing guarantees for OpenAI’s plan to lease a massive data center in southern Ohio. The facility would boast a staggering 10-gigawatt capacity, potentially making it the largest announced AI data center hub on the planet.
Separate discussions involve chip purchases worth up to $350 billion, which means the overall project could exceed $500 billion when everything is factored in.
The circular financing problem
Analysts have flagged this arrangement as indicative of “circular financing” or “bubble-like behavior,” drawing explicit parallels to the dot-com era. Nvidia’s stock dipped approximately 5% following reports of these latest negotiations.
During the dot-com bubble, telecom companies like Lucent Technologies extended generous vendor financing to customers who then used that money to buy Lucent equipment. Revenue looked fantastic on paper. Then the customers couldn’t repay the loans, and the whole edifice collapsed. Lucent’s stock went from over $80 to under $1.
