The story

Nvidia is in talks to provide a roughly $250 billion financial backstop for OpenAI as part of a massive data center project in southern Ohio, The Wall Street Journal reported. The guarantees would help the ChatGPT maker lease a 10-gigawatt project that SoftBank's energy subsidiary is developing in Pike County. The talks are advanced but not final, according to people familiar with the matter.

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 deciding who will receive access to it. OpenAI has been in advanced talks for several weeks to lease the site and is among the companies showing the strongest interest. Anthropic, Microsoft and Google have also spoken to Lutnick in recent weeks.

At a March groundbreaking event, SoftBank Group chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son called the proposed $33 billion, 9.2-gigawatt power plant the biggest power generation in one location at least in the U.S. He described at least $500 billion of investment in one campus for data center operations. Nvidia, OpenAI and the U.S. Commerce Department did not respond to requests for comment.