Nvidia's largest AI guarantee is a promise whose meter starts only when concrete turns into working capacity. The chipmaker has capped its support for OpenAI's leases at an SB Energy campus in Ohio at $105 billion, spread across nine phases expected to begin entering service in fiscal 2029. Each phase carries a 20-year term, and Nvidia's exposure falls as OpenAI makes lease payments. For developers counting on a steady expansion of available compute, that timing matters: much of the supply planned for the end of the decade is being financed against future tenants rather than paid for upfront. Nvidia's latest quarterly filing spells out the sequence.
The Ohio deal sits inside a much larger financing pattern. The Financial Times reports that technology companies have issued up to $300 billion in guarantees tied to AI data centers and chips over the past year. That figure is a collection of maximum exposures under different contracts. It is not a bill due today, and it should not be read as ordinary corporate debt. The filings behind the total show why the distinction matters. They also show hardware vendors and cloud companies using their credit strength to get projects built for customers that may not be able to finance the same projects on their own terms.
A guarantee turns a plan into a financeable project
The basic transaction separates the asset from the company that will use it. A financier or venture owns the data center or AI racks, while the customer signs a long lease for the compute. A larger technology company then promises to cover a defined shortfall if the customer defaults or if the equipment is worth less than an agreed threshold. The structure gives lenders another balance sheet to rely on. Broadcom's filing, for example, says a financial partner took on agreements to buy AI racks and lease them to a customer, while Broadcom supplied a five-year backstop for the customer's lease obligations. Its maximum potential liability is about $29 billion once all racks are deployed.
Nvidia's version is built around land, power and the shell of the facility. SB Energy will develop the PORTS Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, and an OpenAI affiliate will lease capacity representing about 4.25 gigawatts of IT load. Nvidia's guarantee becomes effective as each phase starts service. A tenant default can trigger the payment obligation, which covers defined portions of lease and power payments rather than the site's full cost. In return, the campus will host Nvidia infrastructure exclusively, with limited exceptions. Nvidia also has the option to support roughly 3.8 gigawatts more as the campus expands, according to the same SEC filing.
The $105 billion cap therefore describes the top of a long ramp, not Nvidia's current cash outflow. Nvidia separately disclosed $3.5 billion in maximum gross exposure from land, power and shell guarantees for selected AI cloud partners. It also listed $36 billion of commitments under AI cloud agreements and $20 billion of data-center leases that have not started and that it expects to reassign to third parties. These categories work differently, but together they show Nvidia moving beyond chip sales into capacity procurement and credit support. The filing says some cloud partners may stop providing committed capacity to Nvidia if they can sell it to another customer on better terms.
Alphabet, Meta and Broadcom use different backstops
Alphabet reported $43.8 billion in maximum potential payments under credit derivatives that backstop obligations related to data centers as of June 30, 2026. It also disclosed $7.6 billion of financial guarantees supporting the purchase of long-lead-time equipment for future power and energy agreements. Another estimated $24.1 billion of future backstops was awaiting final terms with data-center providers. If a covered party defaults, Alphabet retains rights to assume the underlying leases for its own use or sublease them, according to Alphabet's quarterly report.
Meta's Louisiana structure protects the residual value of a campus instead of directly promising every lease payment. Meta owns 20 percent of the venture, whose parties have committed their respective shares of about $27 billion in estimated development costs. Meta's initial lease commitment is about $12.31 billion, while its residual value guarantees carry an aggregate threshold of about $28 billion that declines over time. If Meta ends or declines to renew a lease and the contractual conditions are met, its payment would cover the gap between the property's fair value and the relevant threshold. Meta says those payments are not probable, so it has recorded no liability for them.
A second Meta campus could add another $13 billion of maximum residual-value exposure. The company signed an exclusivity agreement in July to co-develop the El Paso, Texas, project through another venture in which it would own 20 percent. That transaction remained subject to definitive agreements and closing conditions in the June-quarter filing. The $13 billion figure remains conditional.
Broadcom's backstop is attached to AI racks rather than real estate. If its unnamed customer defaults, Broadcom would owe the difference between 85 percent of the outstanding lease-backstop amount and the proceeds from selling the recovered racks. Broadcom can limit its exposure by assuming the lease, arranging a sale or, under certain conditions, selling the racks back to the seller at a fixed price. The company reported that the guarantee's fair value was not material and that it had paid nothing under it. The customer can also issue Broadcom up to $42 billion in convertible promissory notes under certain conditions, but no notes had been issued as of August 2, 2026. Those details come directly from Broadcom's Form 10-Q.
Maximum exposure is not the same as present loss
The largest figures describe what could happen under defaults and deployment schedules. Asset-value tests add another condition. Accounting statements also report the current fair value or probability of those obligations, which can be far smaller. Alphabet listed a $43.8 billion notional amount for its credit derivatives while recording $815 million in related derivative liabilities. Its separate $7.6 billion of financial guarantees had a fair value the company called immaterial. Alphabet's filing also says some future backstops have not reached final terms.
The maximum figures describe a defined tail risk that can grow as equipment arrives or buildings open. Broadcom's ceiling rises as racks are delivered, then falls as its customer pays. Nvidia's Ohio exposure follows the nine construction phases and declines over each lease. Meta's threshold also decreases over time. Read the contractual ceiling beside the smaller present accounting value. The company filings provide both measurements.
The assets behind the guarantees create another variable: their resale value after a default. A data-center shell tied to a specific power connection can potentially take another tenant. Custom AI racks may be harder to place if the customer's configuration or the chips have aged. Broadcom's formula explicitly subtracts rack-sale proceeds from its obligation, while Meta's test compares a property's fair value with a declining threshold. The recoverable value of specialized infrastructure therefore sits inside the credit calculation. Broadcom's filing makes that dependency unusually visible.
Developers should read capacity forecasts with the financing terms
The immediate result may be more compute reaching the market. A lender can fund racks or a campus with more confidence when Nvidia, Alphabet or Broadcom agrees to absorb part of a defined default loss. Yet a financed project does not serve a single token until its land, power, construction and hardware are ready. Nvidia warns that permitting delays, power constraints, community opposition and customer financing problems can slow or prevent data-center deployment. It also says lower compute demand or pricing could leave it committed to capacity it cannot use or resell. Those risks appear in Nvidia's own risk factors.
This changes how teams should interpret announcements measured in gigawatts. A signed campus can have a credible site and credit package while remaining several years from usable capacity. Nvidia's first Ohio phase is expected in fiscal 2029. Meta's Louisiana leases also begin in 2029, and Alphabet's energy agreements can run as far as 2054. Alphabet disclosed $707 billion in fixed or guaranteed commitments, most of them long-term supply agreements, which shows how far ahead infrastructure procurement now reaches.
The suppliers are also becoming tied to their customers' ability to fill the capacity. Nvidia gets an exclusive hardware venue in exchange for its Ohio guarantee. Broadcom's backstop supports racks built around its custom accelerators. Alphabet may take over or sublease facilities covered by its agreements. These are commercial protections, and they bind future hardware sales more closely to tenant credit and utilization. The Financial Times' nearly $300 billion estimate captures the scale of that relationship better than capital-spending figures alone.
The next useful evidence will arrive in the footnotes: changes in maximum exposure, increases in recorded fair value, actual payments, lease assignments and construction phases entering service. Ohio's first phase is the clearest checkpoint because Nvidia has given it a fiscal 2029 start and a nine-phase schedule. Until those buildings open, the $105 billion figure is best read as a map of who has agreed to carry the risk if OpenAI's promised capacity and future payments part ways. Nvidia's filing gives readers the numbers needed to track that map quarter by quarter.