OpenAI, SoftBank’s SB Energy, and Nvidia announced a massive 20-year data center site in Pike County, central Ohio. The facility will feature 8 IT gigawatts of computing capacity powered by 10 gigawatts of energy.

The project sits partly on federal property once dedicated to enriching uranium. OpenAI stated that the goal is to generate 35,000 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent positions.

Running exclusively on Nvidia hardware, the data center will be supported by a $4 billion-plus local energy infrastructure investment from SoftBank and SB Energy. 

OpenAI expects the data center’s initial computing capacity to come online starting in 2028, marking the first phase in bringing the mega-campus fully operational.

“This is going to be a huge site, with enough computing power to help millions of people use AI to do things we can only start to imagine today, from finding new medicines to starting businesses and solving hard problems,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.

The financial web

This huge structure will be supported by complex financial structure. 

Nvidia agreed to guarantee up to $105 billion in conditional lease and power payment obligations, stepping in as the financial backstop should OpenAI default. In exchange, Nvidia gets exclusive rights to supply the chips, along with a direct $1.5 billion equity investment in SB Energy. 

“AI is becoming infrastructure – the foundation for intelligence in every industry – and land, power and shell have become vital in the age of AI. Now is the time to scale the AI infrastructure that will power the next industrial revolution,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. 

“We are securing long-lived infrastructure for NVIDIA compute so OpenAI can deploy the most productive AI factories that can be upgraded repeatedly with each new generation delivering more intelligence and better economics,” Huang added in the press statement. 

Critics immediately flagged the structure, warning it echoes “circular” financing where suppliers, buyers, and investors prop up one another’s balance sheets.

Huang pushed back firmly against those concerns. “Is this circular financing? No,” Huang declared, stressing that OpenAI remains directly on the hook for rent payments. 

According to Huang, Nvidia is simply using its scale and long-term visibility to secure durable physical locations. That strategy allows them to repeatedly upgrade hardware over multiple chip generations at a single mega-site.

Push for creating data centers

Reportedly, the initiative supports a broader federal effort to convert Cold War nuclear sites into natural gas-backed AI hubs. 

In July, NextEra Energy and Brookfield revealed preliminary plans with the US Department of Energy to redevelop Kentucky’s decommissioned Paducah uranium enrichment complex. 

To counter widespread public pushback over data centers‘ heavy electricity and water use, OpenAI and SB Energy pledged that local residents will not bear any energy or infrastructure costs for their new facility. 

The Ohio campus will launch with 4.25 gigawatts of capacity and an option to expand by 3.75 gigawatts.

The new Ohio deal builds on a broader arms race among tech giants to secure huge gigawatt computing infrastructure. It follows last year’s $500 billion “Stargate” announcement, which is a multiyear project led by OpenAI, Nvidia, SoftBank, and Oracle targeting 10 gigawatts across multiple sites.

It also surpasses other massive tech investments, including Meta’s planned 5-gigawatt facility in Louisiana and SpaceX’s 1-gigawatt Colossus data center network across Tennessee and Mississippi.