Nvidia has put up to $164.5bn in guarantees and commitments behind AI data centres, according to its latest quarterly filing, as the chipmaker increasingly acts as a financier for the customers that buy its processors.
The largest single item, about $105bn, is a guarantee on lease payments for a data centre campus in Ohio being built for OpenAI, according to figures reported by The Information. If OpenAI fails to pay rent, Nvidia pays the landlord. A further $36bn or so covers commitments to buy cloud capacity that providers cannot sell elsewhere, about $20bn relates to leases Nvidia has signed directly, and about $3.5bn guarantees leases signed by cloud providers. Nvidia has also invested or pledged more than $7bn directly in AI cloud companies.
Strain among the 'neoclouds'
The disclosures come as specialist AI cloud providers come under pressure. Nvidia has agreed to buy any unsold capacity at CoreWeave through April 2032; CoreWeave's unsecured bonds due in 2031 and 2032 traded below 81 cents on the dollar in mid-October. In the UK, Microsoft ended an agreement with Nscale for a site at Loughton in Essex after grid operators reportedly said adequate power could not be delivered until the 2030s.
Echoes of 2000
Some analysts have compared the arrangements to the telecoms boom of around 2000, when equipment makers such as Lucent and Nortel lent heavily to their customers. The differences are significant: Nvidia's cash flow is far larger, and most of its exposure is contingent rather than drawn. But the commitments link the chipmaker's fortunes more tightly to the financial health of a small group of AI developers and cloud operators, at a time when investors are already questioning the returns on AI spending.