Nvidia is reportedly in talks to provide a $250 billion financing package for a giant OpenAI data center project in Ohio — days after CEO Jensen Huang voiced support for controversial “open source” AI models used increasingly by China.
Nvidia’s guarantees would help the ChatGPT maker lease a 10-gigawatt project — the largest the industry has yet seen, costing as much as $500 billion in total — that Japanese billionaire Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank is developing in southern Ohio through its energy subsidiary, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Sunday.
The AI pioneer has been in advanced talks to lease the site for several weeks, per the Journal report and Anthropic, Microsoft and Google have also spoken to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick about the project.
The potential deal has also reignited fears that Nvidia is singlehandedly propping up the AI boom. Financiers including Goldman Sachs traders and famed investor Michael Burry of “Big Short” have for months sounded the alarm that such agreements are “circular” in nature, where Nvidia finances and takes stakes in companies and projects that use its chips.
Meanwhile, Huang — in his first post ever on X late Friday — issued a letter rallying for controversial open-source models that was also signed by other tech titans including Microsoft, Meta, IBM and Palantir Technologies. The group – calling itself the Open Secure AI Alliance – called on lawmakers to avoid “premature restrictions on open models that stifle competition or drive innovation overseas.”
The missive by Huang was widely seen in tech circles as a landmark moment in the intensifying debate over open vs closed-source AI models that has roiled Silicon Valley and Washington.
On one side, Huang and other tech titans say models that aren’t solely controlled by one company speed the development of AI and prevent power from being overly concentrated. Opponents — most notably Anthropic and OpenAI — say releasing AI blueprints hands bad actors the keys to build AI tools that can be used for nefarious purposes.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in a 2023 testimony before the US Senate Judiciary Committee that open source AI was moving down a “very dangerous path” — a warning he has lately stepped up.
Altman, meanwhile, has also argued against open source AI – but last year OpenAI launched some tools with open source elements, known as open weights.
“It was clear that if we didn’t do it, the world was gonna be mostly built on Chinese open-source models,” Altman told CNBC last year.
Huang acknowledged in his letter that open-source AI models carry a risk but that in the long-run they will AI to create “innovation and prosperity.”
“To be sure, open weights carry real and distinct risks. Once released, the weights are beyond the original developer’s control, and modified versions are difficult to trace or reverse,” Huang wrote in the alliance’s letter. “But the right response to this risk is not to prohibit open weights.”
The alliance group said Monday it’s developing and is aiming to deploy open-source AI tools that any company can use to thwart cyberattacks.
The Ohio project is a big bet for both Lutnick and the Trump administration. As part of Japan’s tariff agreement with the U.S., Tokyo committed $33 billion to build a natural-gas power facility on federal land that will be operated by SB Energy, a company controlled by SoftBank’s Son.
Lutnick, Son and Energy Secretary Chris Wright broke ground on the site – Built on a former uranium-enrichment site south of Columbus – in March. The U.S. will pay SB Energy to run the plant, while Japan and America will split power revenue until Japan recovers its investment. After that, the U.S. would receive 90% of the proceeds.
Other tech giants are exploring this model – Google, for instance, has backstopped some data centers for Anthropic.
Nvidia and other supporters of open-source have argued that proprietary tools from companies like Anthropic or OpenAI can similarly be misused and have their safeguards circumvented. But disseminating the AI capabilities widely with open-source tools will allow everyone to be able to defend themselves.
Nvidia’s backing of the data center project would allow the SoftBank-owned developer to raise debt at more favorable terms than it could if OpenAI had no financial backer since the Sam Altman-led startup is an unprofitable private company and thus has no investment-grade credit rating.
Nvidia already has $30 billion riding on OpenAI and is also discussing a deal to finance chip buying for OpenAI, which could total $350 billion, according to the Journal.
The proposed mega AI campus would consume roughly 10 gigawatts of electricity – enough to power several million homes – and take years to complete with the first phase expected to be finished in 2028.
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