Nvidia's $5 Billion SSI Bet Adds Fuel to a Fire Already Burning Over $250 Billion in Customer Guarantees
Published on 07/28/2026 at 21:31 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
Nvidia has handed Safe Superintelligence Inc. a $5 billion check, buying itself a front-row seat to the research lab of Ilya Sutskever, the former OpenAI chief scientist. The deal, confirmed July 27, 2026, is one of the largest single capital injections in the chipmaker's history and secures Nvidia preferential access to SSI's future computing needs — specifically its upcoming "Vera Rubin" platform. The startup's compute capacity is expected to increase tenfold within a year.
But the SSI investment is only the latest in a dizzying string of financial commitments that have left investors questioning whether Nvidia is a chip company, a venture capital firm, or a bank. The market's answer came Monday, when Nvidia's credit default swaps hit a record high and the stock shed roughly 5 percent on the Nasdaq, closing at $196.51 and wiping out an estimated $250 billion in market capitalization. In German trading, the shares stabilized Tuesday at €173.24, up 0.21 percent, though the seven-day decline stands at 4.77 percent.
A Web of Guarantees Worth Half a Trillion
The anxiety centers on reports that Nvidia may backstop up to $250 billion for OpenAI's planned 10-gigawatt data center in Pike County, Ohio — a project whose total cost could exceed $500 billion. The facility, being developed by SB Energy on the site of a former uranium enrichment plant, would see its first 800-megawatt phase operational by 2028. On top of that, Nvidia is reportedly considering another $350 billion in financing for OpenAI chip purchases, adding to the $30 billion it had already invested in the company.
These commitments sit alongside last week's $500 billion-plus partnership with South Korea's SK Group, which includes building AI factories and securing next-generation high-bandwidth memory chips. SK Telecom will construct a 2-gigawatt data center in South Korea powered by Vera Rubin. Nvidia also took a $1 billion stake in internet giant Naver, becoming its third-largest shareholder at 4.5 percent, while asset manager Brookfield contributes up to $9 billion toward a 200-megawatt data center capacity target by 2028. A separate 15-year lease worth up to $50 billion with Hut 8 for a Texas data center — built to Nvidia's own DSX reference architecture and equipped exclusively with its chips — rounds out the picture.
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Circular Financing or Strategic Foresight?
Critics see a pattern of circular financing: Nvidia lends customers the money they then use to buy Nvidia chips. Investor Michael Burry and short-seller Jim Chanos have raised concerns about hidden risks. Jim Cramer compared the model to the vendor financing that fueled the dot-com crash. A JPMorgan strategist called the current AI cycle "too close" to that bubble. The International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements had previously warned of systemic risks from such tech-sector financing chains.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang dismissed the circular financing accusation as "absurd" and "ridiculous." The company's defenders point to fundamentals that remain formidable. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, revenue surged 85 percent to $81.6 billion, with the data center segment alone contributing $75.2 billion. Earnings per share came in at $1.87, and the company carries $119 billion in delivery commitments. Yet the four largest customers account for 61 percent of revenue — a concentration that amplifies every new financing deal's perceived risk.
The anxiety spilled into Asian markets Tuesday, with South Korea's Kospi dropping more than 9 percent and Japan's Nikkei falling roughly 4 percent. Chip suppliers SK Hynix, Samsung, and Kioxia all suffered double-digit declines.
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Analysts Split as Technicals Signal Caution
Not every analyst is sounding alarms. Bernstein reaffirmed its "Buy" rating and a $315 price target (roughly €291), citing Vera Rubin's long-term potential and sustained AI demand. Wedbush acknowledged the OpenAI guarantee carries risk but called it net positive for Nvidia over time. Societe Generale captured the shifting mood: investors now watch the credit default swap, not earnings per share.
Technically, Nvidia's stock sits 14.45 percent below its 52-week high of €202.50, with a relative strength index of 43.8 — neutral territory after recovering from its September low. The next quarterly results are due August 26, 2026. By then, the market will have more data to judge whether Nvidia's multi-hundred-billion-dollar wager on both research and infrastructure is visionary leverage or a balance sheet stretched too thin.
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