Jim Cramer says Washington will not let Nvidia lose the artificial intelligence race to China. He frames the US government as a quiet backstop behind the chipmaker’s biggest bets.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick controls power access to a federal site in Ohio. Nvidia is negotiating a $250 billion guarantee there for OpenAI, tying the chipmaker to a government decision.
Nvidia’s Backstop Meets Washington’s Power Switch
Nvidia is in talks to guarantee roughly $250 billion in financing for OpenAI’s lease, the Wall Street Journal reported. The deal covers a 10-gigawatt data center campus in Piketon, Ohio.
The site sits on decommissioned federal land. The full project, including chips, could exceed $500 billion.
Electricity for the campus flows from a natural gas plant that Japan is funding with a $33 billion investment. That investment is part of a recent US trade deal.
Lutnick decides which company gets access to that power. OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google have all approached him about the site.
Washington in Deep with Nvidia, Says Cramer
On Monday night’s episode of “Mad Money,” Cramer linked Nvidia’s financial strength to Washington’s stake in the outcome.
“They have the best balance sheet of any company in the world,” Cramer said. He added that the government is a “subtle backstop” so China does not win the AI race.
Nvidia’s cash and a government hand on the power switch make a powerful combination. That combination helps explain why Cramer still calls Nvidia a stock to own even as shares slide.
Not everyone agrees the setup is healthy. Investor Michael Burry has called the arrangement circular.
He argues Nvidia’s guarantees would fund OpenAI’s purchases of Nvidia’s own chips. Nvidia is discussing that separate chip financing package, which could reach $350 billion. OpenAI also lacks its own investment-grade credit rating, a gap that already caused other financing troubles this year.
The bigger question is what happens if Washington’s role in AI infrastructure becomes the industry’s financing template. That role already includes Jensen Huang’s open-model push and Nvidia’s new security alliance.
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