Nvidia Rows Back on $250 Billion OpenAI Pledge and the Stock Rises

Nvidia stock has risen 24% over the past 12 months. (Marlena Sloss/Bloomberg)

Key Points

• Nvidia is set to guarantee less than $120 billion of OpenAI’s Ohio data-center campus plan, down from a previous $250 billion.
• The shift was made in response to investor concerns regarding Nvidia’s balance-sheet exposure.
• Nvidia shares rose on Monday following the report.

Nvidia stock was edging up early Monday. Shareholders might be reassured the chip maker is moderating its financial support for ChatGPT-developer OpenAI and its huge data-center investments.

The shares were up 0.7% in premarket trading. The stock has risen 11% in the past month.

Nvidia is now set to guarantee less than $120 billion of OpenAI’s plan to build a large-scale data-center campus in Ohio, down from $250 billion previously, The Wall Street reported late Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. The shift was made in response to investors’ concerns about Nvidia’s balance-sheet exposure, according to the Journal.

As the dominant supplier of artificial-intelligence chips, Nvidia has looked to ease the financing bottleneck in the AI infrastructure buildout by making investments across the ecosystem. Nvidia has made 66 private-company investments in 2025 and 2026, according to FactSet, with some investors questioning whether the board should instead return that capital to shareholders.

More recently, Nvidia said it would partner with Wall Street firms to make $500 billion in capital available for its customers. While that avoids some of the concerns about Nvidia’s direct exposure, the chip maker also said it might provide a “residual-value support mechanism” in such deals, limited to 25% of a deal and entered into on a case-by-case basis.

Barron’s has written positively about Nvidia’s strategy to act as the “buyer-of-last-resort” for AI hardware, arguing much of the investment is likely to return as revenue.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com

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