Nvidia's $105bn Ohio guarantee covers buildings, not OpenAI

This article was published on August 17, 2026 Nvidia signed the Ohio deal on Monday and capped its exposure at $105bn, down from the $250bn first reported in July. The cut matters less than the rewrite. The guarantee now covers what the buildings are worth, not what OpenAI owes, and OpenAI has agreed to repay anything Nvidia pays out. NVIDIA Guarantees SB Energy’s PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio to Exclusively Host NVIDIA AI Compute A residual value guarantee is a promise about an object, not about a tenant. Someone builds a thing. Someone else rents it. A third party promises the thing itself will still be worth a set amount. If the renter walks, the owner relets or sells. The guarantor covers only the shortfall. It is the structure behind a car lease. It now underpins the largest data centre project yet announced. Nvidia confirmed the arrangement on Monday. It has secured land, power and shell capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, southern Ohio. SB Energy will build, own and operate the campus. OpenAI has signed a 20-year lease as the customer. The initial phase covers 4.25 IT-gigawatts, and Nvidia holds an option on the remaining 3.75. “Now is the tim