Nvidia Guaranteed Up to $105B on OpenAI's Ohio Lease

Nvidia provided a conditional guarantee of up to $105 billion on the first phase of an Ohio data center campus that OpenAI will rent for 20 years, taking exclusive chip-sales rights and equity in the landlord in return. The same day, Groq raised $350 million at $3.5 billion, roughly half its September 2025 financing valuation, after Nvidia licensed its technology and hired most of its team, and Nvidia joined that round. Anthropic's run rate reached $65 billion at the end of July.

Nvidia guaranteed up to $105 billion on the first phase of OpenAI's Ohio lease

SB Energy, a SoftBank unit, will build and operate a data center campus at the PORTS-Pike site in Portsmouth, Ohio, on land that includes a former federal uranium enrichment plant, and lease it to OpenAI for 20 years. The campus is designed for 8 gigawatts of IT capacity supported by 10 gigawatts of new generation.

The guarantee is narrower than the headline. Nvidia's $105 billion covers the first phase, roughly half the site, and pays out only if OpenAI defaults on the lease and SB Energy then cannot re-lease or resell the campus at a similar valuation. In exchange, Nvidia took the exclusive right to sell chips into that first phase and a $1.5 billion equity stake in SB Energy, joining SoftBank Group and OpenAI, which was already an investor in its own landlord. Talks reported in late July had described a backstop as large as $250 billion.

Nvidia bought exclusive sales rights into an 8-gigawatt campus by lending its credit to the tenant's landlord, then took equity in that landlord alongside the tenant. The arrangement illustrates the financial interdependence that can arise among AI developers, infrastructure providers and semiconductor suppliers. Nvidia's guarantee, chip-supply rights and investment in SB Energy are relevant context when evaluating the parties' respective commercial relationships. These arrangements do not, by themselves, establish or determine OpenAI's private-market valuation, and a private valuation built on those commitments may reflect the supplier relationship as much as the business. Any read across the two companies should account for the fact that a public chip supplier and a private model developer differ substantially in disclosure, capital structure and business mix.

Reported private-company financials and secondary-market indications may be unaudited, incomplete, non-standard, or based on limited transaction activity. They should not be relied upon as fair value, executable pricing, or a basis for any investment decision.

For more company information, recent coverage, and available market data, visit OpenAI on Augment.

Groq raised $350 million at $3.5 billion, roughly half its September 2025 financing valuation

Disruptive led the round. The $3.5 billion figure is roughly half the $6.9 billion Groq reached in September 2025, before Nvidia struck a licensing deal with the company and hired founder and chief executive Jonathan Ross along with much of the team. Nvidia is also an investor in the new round.

A Groq spokesperson told TechCrunch the company does not regard the figure as a down round, but as a valuation for the post-licensing-deal version of the business, which now operates data centers selling inference capacity rather than designing chips.

Nvidia is on both sides of this morning's two largest private-market stories: the guarantor in Ohio, and an investor in the round that reset Groq's price. The company's business, personnel and operating model changed materially between the two financings following the Nvidia licensing transaction and personnel moves. Accordingly, the reported September 2025 and August 2026 valuations may not be directly comparable.

Reported private-company financials and secondary-market indications may be unaudited, incomplete, non-standard, or based on limited transaction activity. They should not be relied upon as fair value, executable pricing, or a basis for any investment decision.

📈 Data Point of the Day

$65 billion

Anthropic told investors its annualized revenue run rate reached $65 billion at the end of July, up from $47 billion in May and about $9 billion at the end of 2025. The company also reported more than $11.5 billion in preliminary second-quarter revenue. A run rate annualizes a recent period rather than reporting a completed year, so it is not directly comparable to an audited annual figure.

Reported private-company financials may be unaudited, incomplete, non-standard, or based on limited transaction activity. They should not be relied upon as fair value, executable pricing, or a basis for any investment decision.

⚡ Quick Takes

• The DOJ has been investigating a16z for nearly a year over board seats — Bloomberg reported the civil antitrust probe examines whether partners improperly serve on the boards of competing AI companies under Section 8 of the Clayton Act, citing Ben Horowitz's seat at Databricks and Martin Casado's at Fivetran. Enforcement of that section has historically focused on private equity rather than venture.
• Nine large tech companies carry about $3 trillion in off-balance-sheet AI commitments — A Wall Street Journal review of filing footnotes counted roughly $1.2 trillion in leases that have not started and $1.9 trillion in purchase commitments for chips, power and infrastructure, against about $600 billion of reported capital spending over the same period. The list of companies reviewed reportedly includes SpaceX.
• Higgsfield raised $400 million at a reported $5.4 billion valuation — DST Global led, with Growth Equity at Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Intel Capital, Liberty Global and Mirae Asset among the participants. The AI video company said annualized revenue reached $700 million this month, against $20 million a year earlier. It was valued at $1.3 billion in January.
• Meta and BlackRock's $14 billion El Paso data center is not insured against total loss — The Financial Times reported that coverage arranged through Marsh runs well below the project's value: $218 million for certain construction delays and $645 million for terrorism, against $12.5 billion of debt financing behind BlackRock's 80% interest in the one-gigawatt campus. Meta provides residual value guarantees with an aggregate threshold of about $13 billion.
• Shein is reportedly targeting a valuation of about $25 billion in Hong Kong — Reuters reported the figure is down from the $30 billion to $40 billion range reported earlier this month, following investor meetings. Final demand and pricing will depend on market conditions and the offering process, and Shein has not commented publicly on the number.

🎓 From the Manual

Residual value guarantee

A promise to cover the shortfall if an asset ends up worth less than an agreed amount. Nvidia's Ohio commitment is one, with a second condition attached: it pays only if OpenAI defaults and SB Energy then cannot re-lease or resell the campus at a similar valuation. Two conditions have to fail before money moves, so the guaranteed amount and the expected exposure are different numbers. The structure showed up twice in Monday's news, at up to $105 billion in Ohio and about $13 billion in El Paso. Depending on the terms and applicable accounting requirements, residual value guarantees may be disclosed as contingent or contractual obligations before a payment obligation is triggered.

👀 What We're Watching

Nvidia's pace of direct participation in private rounds. Crunchbase News counted 59 known rounds involving Nvidia so far this year, against 53 in all of 2025, and put the collective value of rounds with chip-company participation above $250 billion year to date. Additional rounds with the same name on the cap table, if they occur, may provide context on how much of private AI pricing runs through one supplier.

Securitization terms on data center debt. CNBC reported that the $500 billion financing package Nvidia announced with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR follows July SEC guidance concluding that certain data center debt falls outside the rules requiring sponsors to retain part of their own deals. BlackRock's Larry Fink has compared the emerging structure to the creation of mortgage-backed securities. How that debt is priced and held is worth tracking.

Crusoe's reported bank lineup for a listing. Axios reported Monday that Crusoe is in IPO discussions with at least four Wall Street banks, including JPMorgan, which is advising on a $3 billion pre-IPO raise reportedly set to value the company at $35 billion. No filing is public and no timetable has been confirmed.

Reported private-company financials and secondary-market indications may be unaudited, incomplete, non-standard, or based on limited transaction activity. They should not be relied upon as fair value, executable pricing, or a basis for any investment decision.