NVIDIA Reportedly Backed Cloud GPU Buyers; 10-Q Caps Guarantees at $108.5B

According to Mediaite's account of the Journal article, Jensen Huang summoned his senior finance team in August because NVIDIA was in talks to provide those guarantees. The Decoder, summarizing the same article, says the program let AI cloud providers and data-center developers buy NVIDIA hardware, and that the providers were meant to give NVIDIA a cut of their revenue. Huang's son-in-law, Nico Caprez, led some of the deals. Huang has since resigned, and Colette Kress, formerly chief financial officer, is interim chief executive; NVIDIA has pledged to keep its customer commitments and product plans, The Korea Herald reported on Nov. 13.

The largest deal was a proposed $250 billion guarantee for an OpenAI data center in Ohio, which Kress cut in half before it was signed in August, The Decoder says. NVIDIA's own filing gives the signed number.

What the 10-Q Shows

In the 10-Q for the quarter ended July 26, 2026, NVIDIA says it signed guarantees in August 2026 capped at $105 billion for a land, power and shell buildout by affiliates of SB Energy at the PORTS Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio. They cover leases for about 4.25 gigawatts (GW) of IT load under 20-year leases to an OpenAI affiliate, in nine phases, with the first expected in fiscal year 2029.

The filing says the guarantees cover defined portions of lease and power payments, not the full cost of the site, and are triggered by certain tenant defaults. They end if OpenAI reaches a satisfactory credit rating or when each lease term ends, and NVIDIA's exposure declines as OpenAI pays its lease. NVIDIA holds an option to add support for about 3.8 GW more. Other guarantees for AI cloud partners' data-center leases carry a maximum gross exposure of $3.5 billion, which makes the $108.5 billion total.

Separately, NVIDIA's commitments under cloud service agreements with AI cloud partners totaled $36 billion on July 26, typically over six years. The filing says those partners can stop providing the capacity to NVIDIA and sell it to third parties at better rates. It also lists $99 billion of equity investments, $25 billion of investment commitments, and memorandums of understanding to mobilize more than $500 billion of third-party capital that may not lead to definitive agreements.

The Journal's "half" does not match the filing arithmetic: half of $250 billion is $125 billion, against a signed cap of $105 billion. Wccftech, also reading the Journal, gives $125 billion for 4.25 GW. Voltgrid could not read the Journal article itself, so the filing's $105 billion governs.

Who Relies on NVIDIA's Backing

Financial News, the Korean business daily, estimates that NVIDIA supplied about $2 billion, or 60%, of Nscale's $3.36 billion in financing commitments through September, and $2 billion, or 12%, of the $16.8 billion Nebius raised from January through September. It puts NVIDIA's stake in CoreWeave at 10% to 13%, with $6.3 billion of commitments to buy unsold capacity. It says Nebius and CoreWeave shares fell 16.8% and 6.9% on the news of Huang's resignation. Voltgrid has also covered Nscale's IPO filing.

The consequence is for capacity, not only for balance sheets. Financial News says Nscale has sought NVIDIA credit guarantees for about 460 MW of data centers that would let it borrow on near investment-grade terms, and that tighter NVIDIA oversight could slow that kind of financing. Voltgrid's AI capex ledger tracks the spending these sites feed.

What Is Not Confirmed Yet

The headline claim that NVIDIA engineered a GPU shortage is an allegation. Wccftech's reading, which it rates 75% on its own rumor scale, is that NVIDIA financed startups to absorb excess TSMC silicon and memory. The Decoder reports only that Huang described wafer and memory purchase commitments as an "avalanche" while big cloud buyers planned to move to other chips. None of the accounts Voltgrid read shows an intent to inflate scarcity, and the 10-Q describes the guarantees as support for customers that lack investment-grade financing.

The Journal's article was behind a paywall, so every Journal detail here comes from the outlets that relayed it. Mediaite said NVIDIA representatives had not responded to a request for comment, and Voltgrid found no NVIDIA statement as of Nov. 14. None of the accounts name the startups that received guarantees or give GPU counts. The next filing, with any change in the guarantee table, is the place to check.