The chipmaker has faced mounting scrutiny over the risks it assumes through credit support mechanisms used to help customers finance the acquisition of AI hardware. These arrangements, which typically involve providing backstops on loans or other debt facilities for data centers, are often held off Nvidia’s balance sheet, leading to questions about the transparency of the company’s total exposure.
Among its credit commitments, Nvidia has provided as much as $105 billion in residual value guarantees for the data center campus of one single customer. Additionally, the company has extended $36 billion in off-balance-sheet backstops for neocloud providers and $20 billion for leases intended to rent out data center capacity, a trend that critics say is shifting risk into the private credit markets.
