Nvidia May Backstop OpenAI Debt, WSJ Reports. What It Means for the Stock.
Oct 21, 2025 07:40:00 -0400 by Adam Clark | #Chips
Nvidia chips are the favored choice for training artificial-intelligence models. (Joel Saget/AFP via Getty Images)
Key Points
- Nvidia shares were down 0.1% in premarket trading, following a 0.3% fall on Monday, aligning with broader market trends.
- Nvidia’s stock has moved sideways due to concerns about the potentially circular nature of some AI financing deals.
- Nvidia has a deal to lease up to five million chips to OpenAI, valued at $350 billion, and has discussed guaranteeing OpenAI’s loans.
Nvidia struck a big deal with OpenAI—and the stock market isn’t sure what to make of it.
On Tuesday, the chip maker’s shares were down 0.9% at $181.00. The S&P 500 was broadly flat.
The main driver for Nvidia is the artificial-intelligence boom. After surging on Nvidia’s $100 billion investment in OpenAI, the stock has moved sideways amid concerns about the potentially circular nature of some AI financing deals.
Nvidia has a deal in place to lease up to five million of its chips to OpenAI—at a value of $350 billion by today’s standards—and has held conversations about guaranteeing some of OpenAI’s loans, which it plans to take out to build its own data centers, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Such a guarantee would mean Nvidia could be saddled with billions of dollars in debt if OpenAI can’t meet its spending commitments. OpenAI has a $300 billion cloud-computing deal over five years with Oracle, contracts worth up to $22.4 billion with AI cloud company CoreWeave , and has a multibillion-dollar supply deal with custom chip designer Broadcom .
OpenAI is set to generate $13 billion in revenue this year and is valued at $500 billion, according to the WSJ.
Nvidia declined to comment on the report. Barron’s and WSJ owner News Corp has a content-licensing partnership with OpenAI.
Among other chip makers, Advanced Micro Devices was rising 0.2% and Broadcom was gaining 0.1% in premarket trading.
Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com