Nvidia is in talks to backstop OpenAI's $500 billion data center lease, according to Bloomberg — a move that would put the world's most valuable chipmaker behind the financing of the buildings that will house its own chips.
The report lands alongside separate Bloomberg coverage describing roughly $750 billion in Nvidia deals that have, in its words, revived fear of AI "circular financing." That phrase describes an arrangement where a supplier helps fund the customer that turns around and buys the supplier's product. Money flows out, comes back as revenue, and the sales figures look stronger than the underlying demand might justify.
The most pointed criticism comes from short seller Jim Chanos, who according to Benzinga said Nvidia is effectively financing its own AI chip sales through the reported OpenAI deal. Chanos is best known for calling out Enron before its collapse, and his involvement guarantees the skeptics' case gets a hearing.
What's at stake is the quality of Nvidia's growth. If OpenAI and similar customers are buying chips with money that traces back to Nvidia, then some portion of the revenue investors are pricing into the stock is not independent demand — it's a loop. Defenders would argue that vendor financing is common in capital-intensive industries and that Nvidia is simply removing bottlenecks so buildout can proceed at speed. The sources here don't settle that argument; they document that the argument is now loud enough to move the conversation around the stock.
What remains unconfirmed matters too. Bloomberg frames the data center lease backing as talks, not a signed deal, and Benzinga refers to the OpenAI arrangement as reported rather than finalized.
This matters because Nvidia's earnings have become a proxy for the health of the entire AI trade — and if a meaningful share of its sales is being underwritten by Nvidia itself, the market may be reading a financing structure as if it were pure customer demand.