NVIDIA secures 4.25 GW Ohio AI data center capacity for OpenAI

NVIDIA is investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy and securing land, power, and shell (LPS) capacity at SB Energy’s PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, for NVIDIA compute. OpenAI will be the customer, with SB Energy building, owning, and operating the data center under a 20-year lease to OpenAI.

The site is planned to use NVIDIA’s full-stack DSX AI factory platform, spanning GPUs, CPUs, and networking. The initial deployment is designed to support 4.25 IT-GW of AI factory capacity, and NVIDIA has an option to extend the opportunity at PORTS-Pike beyond the initial capacity.

At this scale, the limiting factor often isn’t the server bill of materials, it’s LPS: securing enough grid capacity, securing the physical envelope, and lining up long-lead electrical and mechanical infrastructure so compute can be installed on a predictable schedule. A campus-sized build also shifts the engineering conversation toward phased delivery, resiliency across facility and IT layers, and how quickly the operator can turn additional MW into usable capacity.

Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA, said, “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.”

SB Energy said the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus is reindustrializing the decommissioned Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and surrounding area, spanning private and federal land. The campus is being developed in collaboration with AEP Ohio, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Department of Commerce, with planned capacity expected to come online in phases beginning in 2028.

SB Energy and SoftBank said they will build at least 10 GW of new energy generation, which they said results in 8 IT-GW of AI factory capacity, and invest at least $4.2 billion in new regional grid infrastructure through a partnership with AEP Ohio designed to protect ratepayers. OpenAI also agreed to add an incremental $40 million to SB Energy’s previously announced $40 million community benefits fund, aimed at local priorities including affordable energy, job creation and workforce development, and community and economic development.

Rich Hossfeld, co-CEO of SB Energy, said SB Energy is “building power-first infrastructure at unprecedented scale.” Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, called the Pike County site “a huge site.” Masayoshi Son, Chairman and CEO of SoftBank Group, said the effort will require “infrastructure built at unprecedented speed and scale.”

As part of the financing, NVIDIA is joining existing investors SoftBank Group and OpenAI. Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan served as financial advisors for SB Energy, and Morgan Stanley served as NVIDIA’s financial advisor.

SB Energy and NVIDIA did not provide a public site design with facility-level electrical or cooling specs, but the IT-scale numbers alone make clear this is a campus build intended to be measured in gigawatts, not racks.