On 17 August 2026 NVIDIA filed a Form 8-K reporting that it had entered into multiple residual value guaranties with SB Energy Corp. covering leases for approximately 4.25 gigawatts of IT load at the PORTS Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio. The filing states plainly that “NVIDIA’s aggregate payment obligation is cumulatively capped at $105 billion for its initial commitment under the Agreements.” An affiliate of OpenAI Group PBC is the tenant on the leases; SB Energy, a SoftBank Group company, will build, own and operate the campus. NVIDIA’s accompanying press release, issued the same day, adds that it will invest 1.5 billion dollars in SB Energy and that the site will be built out toward 8 gigawatts of IT capacity supported by at least 10 gigawatts of new generation and at least 4.2 billion dollars of regional grid investment.
The mechanics matter more than the headline number. NVIDIA is not paying 105 billion dollars; it is standing behind the residual value of the leases. Under the filing, if OpenAI becomes insolvent and defaults, or simply fails to make lease payments, NVIDIA pays the shortfall between a guaranteed minimum lease value and whatever the lessor recovers through a replacement lease or a sale. NVIDIA may then assume the lease itself, force a reletting, start a sale process, allow termination, or defer those remedies for up to a year while covering specified project costs. The guaranties become effective in phases as each lease commences, expected to begin in 2028, and terminate at the earliest of the 20th anniversary of lease commencement, OpenAI terminating the lease, or OpenAI achieving a satisfactory credit rating. OpenAI has agreed to reimburse and indemnify NVIDIA for anything NVIDIA actually pays.
NVIDIA also disclosed that it can extend credit support for roughly another 3.8 gigawatts at the same site at its sole discretion, and that OpenAI will use the 4.25 gigawatts to deploy NVIDIA’s full-stack DSX AI factory platform, subject to limited exceptions. The 8-K was filed under Items 1.01 and 2.03, which is the disclosure route for a material definitive agreement and for a direct or off-balance-sheet financial obligation. The form of the agreements is to be filed with NVIDIA’s 10-Q for the quarter ended 26 July 2026, so the full terms were not public at announcement.
For a business leader the structure is the story. The buildout of frontier AI compute has moved past cash purchases and equity investment into vendor credit support, and the chip supplier is now underwriting the creditworthiness of its largest customer to unlock third-party project finance. That is a recognised pattern from telecom and aircraft leasing, and it has a recognised failure mode: the vendor’s revenue and its contingent liabilities point at the same counterparty. Reported figures circulating before the filing were considerably larger than 105 billion dollars, which is a reminder to read the 8-K rather than the coverage. What remains unproven is whether demand in 2028 to 2030 justifies capacity contracted in 2026, and NVIDIA’s guarantee is precisely the instrument that would be tested if it does not.