BlockBeats News, July 27th - According to The Wall Street Journal, Nvidia (NVDA.O) is in talks to provide about $250 billion in financial backing to OpenAI to support a massive data center project—making it one of the largest financial deals in the U.S. artificial intelligence boom. Sources familiar with the matter revealed that Nvidia's backing will help OpenAI lease SoftBank's 10-gigawatt (GW) data center project under development in southern Ohio.

The total cost of the project (including chips deployed inside the data center) could exceed $500 billion, making it the largest-scale data center project announced to date. The project's electricity is controlled by the U.S. government and funded separately by Japan under a recent trade pact. U.S. Commerce Secretary Lutenick was involved in the power allocation decisions.

Under the arrangement, Nvidia will provide guarantees for a series of financing instruments to enhance the lenders' confidence in the project's funding security. The terms have not been finalized, and the deal could still fall apart. This $250 billion guarantee will cover the debt needed for data center leasing and construction, excluding Nvidia's chips in it.