STOCKS | Nvidia CFO Takes the Helm as Financial Backstop Commitments Draw Scrutiny

Nvidia's chief financial officer has taken the helm as the company's high-risk financial backstop commitments draw market scrutiny. According to Sina Finance, the company's latest quarterly 10-Q filing, released in July, disclosed $36 billion in off-balance-sheet backstop guarantees for emerging AI cloud companies and another $20 billion for signed data center lease projects intended to rent out computing capacity. Nvidia has also provided a backstop agreement of up to $105 billion for OpenAI's lease of a planned hyperscale data center campus in Ohio from SB Energy. Nvidia has tightened its review standards for partners seeking backstop guarantees in recent months. Reports said Colette Kress, the interim CEO and former CFO, initially opposed the $105 billion OpenAI-related deal. Adeel Malik, a partner at digital infrastructure M&A advisory firm Origin Partners, said he noticed a change in Nvidia's review standards about three months ago. Malik said a nonbinding letter of intent for computing capacity had previously been sufficient, but now a commitment is generally required, preferably a signed contract; even a binding letter of intent is difficult to obtain.