Openai CEO Sam Altman will speak to the media following a Q&A at the Openai Data Center in Abilene, Texas, USA on September 23, 2025.
Shelby Tauber | Reuters
nvidia’s Announced earlier this week, the massive investment in Openai puts billions of dollars into financial resources for artificial intelligence startups, making it seem appropriate. But most of the money is spent using Nvidia’s cutting edge chips.
The agreement between the two companies was large, but details were weak. They said the investment would reach up to $100 billion, with AI supercomputing facilities open in the coming years, with the first facility coming online in the second half of 2026.
Build-out timing and cost for each data center remain in the air. What’s revealed, however, is that Openai will pay Nvidia’s Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) through lease arrangements, according to people familiar with issues that are not named because the details are private.
Describing this week’s deal as “monologic of size,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang estimates that the capacity is around $50 billion, and the $35 billion used to pay for Nvidia’s GPU is around $50 billion. By leasing the processor, Openai can expand the cost over the life of the GPU. This could mean a person could be up to five years, and Nvidia puts more risks on the line.
Information previously reported on some aspects of a lease agreement.
Nvidia agreed to invest over time as Openai’s data center is up and running. The first $10 billion will soon be available on Openai, helping the company work towards rolling out its first gigawatt capacity, sources told CNBC.
Nvidia’s equity investments could help Openai with employment, marketing and operations, but the biggest single item used is calculation, people said. And it’s almost completely directed towards the Nvidia GPU. This is key to building and training large language models and running AI workloads.
As an uninvestible startup that lacks positive cash flow, fundraising remains costly. Openai executives have called equity the most expensive way to fund data centers, and said the company is preparing to undertake debts to cover the remaining expansions.
In addition to providing Openai with a cost-effective way to access chips, Nvidia’s lease options and long-term commitment will help the company land better terms from the bank when lifting debts.
An Nvidia spokesman declined to comment.
“They’re paid.”
Openai CFO Sarah Friar, home to the first new data center at CNBC in Abilene, Texas, pointed to the role Oracle and Nvidia play in fundraising. Oracleone of Stargate Project’s Openai partners is leasing Abilene’s facilities, and Openai ultimately pays for the business.
“People like Oracle are manipulating their balance sheets to create these incredible data centers that we can see behind us,” Friar says. “In the case of Nvidia, they put together some fairness to jumpstart it, but importantly, as those chips are rolled out, they get paid for all of those chips.”
She said it is necessary to help all big partners ease their dramatic lack of ability.
“What I think we should all focus today is the fact that we don’t have enough calculations,” Frier said. “As our business grows, we will be more than we can pay for what’s in the future.
Steel frames from the data center under construction during a tour of the Openai data center in Abilene, Texas, USA on September 23, 2025.
Shelby Tauber | Reuters
Still, the Openai-nvidia deal raised several concerns about the sustainability of the AI boom.
Nvidia’s march to $4.3 trillion market capitalization is driven by GPU sales and sales to Openai and the mega cup of technology. Google, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon. Openai’s $500 billion private market valuation path has now been able to burn billions of dollars of cash, thanks to heavy investments from Microsoft and others, while building AI models that provide power services, including ChatGpt.
Neuberger Berman analyst Jamie Zakalik said the Nvidia deal is the latest example of a gathering of Openai, who has quickly returned to the capital’s provider.
Investors are concerned that “the circular nature of this transaction will increase revenue for everyone and the number of everyone,” Zakarik said. “But it really doesn’t create anything.”
Asked about these fears, Altman told CNBC that the company is focusing on driving real demand.
“We need to continue selling our services to consumers and businesses, and we need to build these amazing new products where people pay us a lot of money,” he said. “As long as it’s happening, it pays a lot of these data centers, a lot of tips.”
– CNBC’s Kif Leswing contributed to this report
Watch: Oracle, Openai, SoftBank announces expansion of Stargate data center
