# Nvidia's $750 billion AI financing web is drawing scrutiny over circular money flows > Source: > Published: 2026-07-27 10:49:26+00:00 *Nvidia's AI financing web is no longer just a stock-market argument. Fresh reporting on a possible $250 billion OpenAI backstop shows how deeply the chipmaker's money now sits inside the demand for its own chips.* Start with the part you can actually check. OpenAI said on March 31, 2026, that it had closed $122 billion in committed capital at an $852 billion post-money valuation, with Nvidia among the investors. Forbes reported the same valuation that day, and Bloomberg later reported that Nvidia and SoftBank each put in $30 billion while Amazon committed $50 billion. The circularity concern begins there. Nvidia invests in OpenAI. OpenAI needs compute. Most frontier AI compute still runs through Nvidia GPUs, whether the purchase is made directly, through a cloud provider, or through a specialist GPU cloud. The circle is tight. Now it may be getting bigger. The Wall Street Journal reported on July 27, 2026, that Nvidia is in talks to provide a $250 billion financing guarantee tied to OpenAI leasing part of a planned $500 billion data center project in southern Ohio, led by SoftBank's energy arm. The same report said the guarantee could help SoftBank raise debt because OpenAI doesn't have an investment-grade credit rating, and that Nvidia may also help finance chip purchases expected to cost about $350 billion. Here's the thing. None of this has to be fake to be dangerous. The revenue can be real, the chips can ship, and the data centers can still be built on a financing structure where the same few companies are supporting one another's demand. Bloomberg has already mapped the broader AI deal web around OpenAI, Oracle, Microsoft, CoreWeave, AMD, Nvidia and other infrastructure players. One Bloomberg summary put OpenAI's named compute commitments at hundreds of billions of dollars, including deals with Oracle and CoreWeave, while also noting Nvidia's agreement to invest up to $100 billion in OpenAI from an earlier arrangement. You don't need a conspiracy theory here. You need a balance sheet. ## The debt is where the story gets harder CoreWeave is the cleanest example because its public filings give you numbers, not vibes. In its first-quarter 2026 results, the company reported $2.08 billion in revenue, a $740 million net loss and nearly $100 billion in revenue backlog. Its quarterly report filed with the SEC showed $25.1 billion in debt principal as of March 31, with $24.9 billion net of discounts and issuance costs. That is a lot of borrowed money. CoreWeave said in May that it had closed a $3.1 billion delayed draw term loan facility, calling it the first publicly syndicated high-performance-computing-backed delayed draw term loan. In June, it completed a separate senior notes offering, including $1.25 billion of dollar notes at 9.625% and 2 billion euros of notes at 8.5%, both due in 2032. The mechanics are plain. CoreWeave borrows to build AI cloud capacity. Customers commit to buy that capacity. Nvidia benefits when the buildout requires more GPUs, and Nvidia also owns equity in parts of the ecosystem. If demand keeps rising, the structure looks clever. If demand slows, it looks stretched. That's the real test. CNBC reported in May, as relayed by TechCrunch, that Nvidia had already committed more than $40 billion to AI equity deals in 2026, with the $30 billion OpenAI stake accounting for most of the total. Barron's reported last week that Nvidia disclosed a 9.3% stake in Nebius, after a previous $2 billion investment in March. These are not tiny strategic checks. They are infrastructure bets attached to future chip demand. ## Regulators are starting to name the risk The warnings are no longer coming only from short sellers and skeptical fund managers. The IMF's July 8 World Economic Outlook update said a market correction driven by a reassessment of AI profitability is a key downside risk. The BIS Annual Economic Report, published June 28, went directly at the financing structure, saying chip makers, hyperscalers and AI labs are tied through opaque private arrangements, including circular financing where equity stakes sit beside multi-year chip or compute commitments. The BIS did not say an AI bust is guaranteed. It said a sharp repricing could trigger a reassessment of corporate credit risk and a broader tightening of credit conditions. That is a colder sentence, and it is more useful. Financial trouble usually spreads through boring plumbing first. The defense of Nvidia is obvious enough. Frontier AI needs immense capital, chips are scarce, and vendor financing can help a customer secure supply before rivals do. OpenAI also has real revenue, not just a pitch deck. Axios reported in March that OpenAI opened some stock access to individual investors ahead of an expected IPO, and CFO Sarah Friar told Axios the company was thinking about access to the technology and to the economic upside it creates. But Wall Street is asking a sharper question now: how much AI demand is independent demand? A chip sale to a well-capitalised outside buyer is one thing. A chip sale enabled by a customer, lender, cloud provider and equity investor all leaning on one another is another. You should not value those dollars as if they carry the same risk. More AI infrastructure is coming either way. The Journal reported that OpenAI has lifted its planned cloud spending to about $750 billion through 2030, up from a previous estimate of $600 billion. If the revenue follows, Nvidia's financing web will look like disciplined control of the world's scarcest compute supply. If it doesn't, the question won't be whether the GPUs were real. It will be who was ultimately paying for them. **Also read:** [Satya Nadella says US technology trust will outlast the Chinese AI price advantage](https://startupfortune.com/satya-nadella-says-us-technology-trust-will-outlast-the-chinese-ai-price-advantage/) • [Meta sold 80% of its Louisiana data center to Blue Owl Capital the day regulators approved the gas plants to power it](https://startupfortune.com/meta-sold-80-of-its-louisiana-data-center-to-blue-owl-capital-the-day-regulators-approved-the-gas-plants-to-power-it/) • [Congress wants to freeze state AI laws for three years and state lawmakers are refusing to go quietly](https://startupfortune.com/congress-wants-to-freeze-state-ai-laws-for-three-years-and-state-lawmakers-are-refusing-to-go-quietly/)