Nvidia Takes an Equity Stake in OpenAI’s Ohio Data Center Builder, Redrawing How It’s Financing the Buildout

Nvidia announced Monday that it will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy, the SoftBank Group subsidiary developing OpenAI’s Pike County, Ohio data center campus.

Nvidia will also secure exclusive rights to host its own AI compute at the site with up to 8 gigawatts of capacity.

The deal comes days after Nvidia reduced its earlier financing guarantee for the same project from about $250 billion to less than $120 billion following investor concerns. Instead of simply supporting OpenAI’s debt this time, this time Nvidia is taking a direct equity stake in SB Energy, the company building the infrastructure. 

From Guaranteeing Debt to Owning a Piece of the Builder

Nvidia confirmed it secured land, power, and building space at the PORTS Pike Technology Campus, a major data center hub in Ohio. 

The site will use Nvidia’s DSX platform, an advanced computing system built to run complex AI models, starting with 4.25 gigawatts of computing capacity, with room to expand as demand grows. 

CEO Jensen Huang said the infrastructure will allow OpenAI to build AI facilities and upgrade them with each new generation of Nvidia hardware. 

SB Energy co CEO Rich Hossfeld highlighted the local benefits, including tens of thousands of jobs and an $80 million community fund, which OpenAI has increased by another $40 million.

The project also includes an $80 million fund for community benefits, with OpenAI adding another $40 million of its own.

A Pattern Nvidia Keeps Repeating, and Investors Keep Watching

CNBC’s coverage puts Monday’s investment within Nvidia’s broader financing strategy this year, which already includes a $500 billion hardware financing package for customers and stakes in firms such as CoreWeave and Nebius.

The pattern is clear: Nvidia is not just selling chips anymore; it is increasingly helping fund the companies that buy them. 

Reuters says this has helped fuel demand but also raised concerns about money flowing from Nvidia to its biggest customers and back through chip purchases.

When a supplier helps customers pay for its own products, sales remain real, but it becomes harder to separate true end-user demand from Nvidia-driven demand.

This is why analysts look at Anthropic’s Claude, which powers large enterprise AI workloads on Nvidia hardware. 

But because Nvidia does not hold a major direct equity stake in Anthropic, its heavy chip usage offers a cleaner test of genuine demand.

Why an Equity Stake Reads Differently Than a Guarantee

What makes Monday’s announcement notable is the shift from the deal Nvidia just walked back. 

A guarantee means covering someone else’s losses if a project fails, while an equity stake gives Nvidia ownership and direct benefits if the project succeeds. 

The move suggests Nvidia found a commitment its investors were more comfortable with after the earlier figure spooked the stock.

It also shows how AI infrastructure financing is changing. 

Instead of one company taking on most of the risk, multiple stakeholders are sharing it: Nvidia through equity, SoftBank through its backing, OpenAI through its community fund, and AEP Ohio through its grid investment. 

Each takes a smaller share of a project too large for one company to finance alone without worrying investors about the growing AI buildout debt.

Source: NVIDIA Guarantees SB Energy’s PORTS-Pike Technology Campus