Nvidia Entrenches Itself in Circular Financing Web with $1.5 Billion SB Energy Investment
Nvidia is expanding its role in the AI ecosystem by not only providing the chips that power data centers but also funding and leasing them.
The company has invested $1.5 billion in SB Energy, a SoftBank-backed developer building a data center campus for OpenAI in Ohio.
In exchange, Nvidia will receive up to 8 gigawatts of AI computing capacity at the facility, which is expected to cost around $120 billion over its first phase.
This deal is part of a larger financing strategy that involves Nvidia funding and leasing data centers to companies like OpenAI, which then uses Nvidia's GPUs to power their operations.
The arrangement allows Nvidia to benefit from the revenue generated by its chips twice: once as an investment return and again as a chip sale.