Nvidia to Back 4.25GW OpenAI Data Center in Ohio

Nvidia has confirmed that it will financially support SoftBank’s data center project at the Portsmouth Site in Pike County, Ohio. Led by SB Energy, the facility is expected to be fully leased to OpenAI and could eventually reach 10GW, potentially making it the world’s largest data center. Nvidia will initially support 4.25GW of capacity. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said the company will work with SB Energy to secure land, power, and shell capacity at the Department of Energy site.

Nvidia is reportedly considering a $120 billion backstop for the project to help reduce borrowing costs, down from an earlier plan of up to $250 billion following investor concerns. Nvidia will also invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy, while the SoftBank subsidiary plans to develop 10GW of new power generation, including 9.2GW of natural gas capacity, to support up to 8GW of IT load. SB Energy and SoftBank also plan to invest at least $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure through a partnership with AEP Ohio.

"Nvidia is supporting the LPS infrastructure at Ports-Pike for approximately 4GW over a 20-year term, securing a site on which Nvidia compute will be exclusively deployed," Huang said. "Our support is limited to defined portions of lease and power payments, along with a specified residual-value commitment — not the full cost of the site or all of the tenant’s obligations. The guarantee will become effective in phases as data centers are placed in service between 2028 and 2030. As OpenAI makes lease payments and capacity comes online, Nvidia's remaining exposure declines."

Huang said Ports-Pike will exclusively use Nvidia GPUs and its full-stack AI platform, with multiple generations of Nvidia systems deployed over 20 years. Each generation could represent up to 1.5 million GPUs and $150–200 billion in Nvidia revenue. The company may also secure the site’s remaining 3.75GW of capacity.