PIKE COUNTY, OHIO — OpenAI, the artificial intelligence (AI) platform best known for ChatGPT, has signed a 20-year lease agreement to be the customer at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus, an AI data center redevelopment of the decommissioned Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Pike County, located in southern Ohio’s Appalachian region. The size and cost of the campus has not been released, but The New York Times reports that it will be among the world’s largest data centers and that the build-out could cost as much as $500 billion.
SB Energy, a data center and power infrastructure company backed by Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp., will build, own and operate the campus.
Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA), a hardware manufacturer of semiconductors and networking systems for AI data centers, will provide the full build-out at PORTS-Pike Technology Campus using its DSX AI factory platform — encompassing all aspects typical to an AI-ready data center, including GPUs (graphics processing units), CPUs (central processing units), servers and infrastructure software.
Nvidia has secured land, power and shell (LPS) rights at the Pike County project through a partnership with SB Energy. Nvidia will immediately invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy to support the project’s build-out.
SB Energy and SoftBank are committing to provide at least 10 GW of power capacity at the plant, which results in 8 IT-GW of computing capacity, according to Nvidia. The Santa Clara-based company is supporting 4.25 gigawatts of AI factory capacity initially, with the option to extend the computing capacity at PORTS-Pike by another 3.75 GW of IT load.
“AI is becoming infrastructure — the foundation for intelligence in every industry — and land, power and shell have become vital in the age of AI,” says Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia. “Now is the time to scale the AI infrastructure that will power the next industrial revolution.”
“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,” says Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. “We’re proud to build it in Pike County, a place that is once again at the heart of American industry and leading the future.”
Spanning private and federal land, the Pike County campus is being developed in collaboration with utility provider AEP Ohio, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Commerce. The PORTS-Pike Technology Data Center is expected to create 35,000 construction jobs during its six-year build-out through 2032, along with 2,500 long-term operating jobs, according to OpenAI.
The planned computing capacity is expected to come on line in phases, with the first 800 megawatts becoming available in 2028, according to Nvidia.
Nvidia has reportedly guaranteed up to $105 billion in credit and financing for the project, which is down from the potential $250 billion in backing recently reported by The Wall Street Journal. Last week, Nvidia announced that it signed memorandums of understanding with six global asset managers — Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR — to “mobilize more than $500 billion of third-party capital for the build-out of AI infrastructure over time.”
SB Energy and SoftBank have committed to investing at least $4.2 billion in new regional grid infrastructure at the site through a partnership with AEP Ohio, which “is designed to protect ratepayers.” OpenAI has stated that SB Energy plans to pay for the full cost of the grid upgrades and new transmission lines needed at the new AI factory. Additionally, the company says that the project is designed to recirculate water via closed-loop, air-cooled cooling systems instead of relying on cooling towers.
Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan served as financial advisors for SB Energy. Morgan Stanley served as Nvidia’s financial advisor.
Nvidia’s stock price closed on Monday, Aug. 17 at $220.36 per share, up from $182.01, a more than 21 percent increase.
— John Nelson