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Invests 1.5 Billion in SB Energy to Back Massive OpenAI Ohio Data Center
Nvidia is investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy and providing credit support for a massive new AI data center campus in Ohio that will supply computing capacity to OpenAI.
The agreement, announced Aug. 17 in a company blog post, centers on SB Energy's PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, where Nvidia will be the exclusive AI compute infrastructure provider.
SB Energy will build, own and operate the data center under a 20-year lease to OpenAI.
The tech giant will provide credit support for the land, power and shell buildout needed to secure the project's initial 4.25 IT-GW of capacity.
The company also has an option on the remaining 3.75 IT-GW, while OpenAI is expected to be the customer for the full 8 IT-GW planned for the campus.
The facility will use Nvidia's full-stack DSX AI factory platform, including its GPUs, CPUs and networking technology.
The chipmaker said the architecture is designed to provide resiliency across facilities, hardware and software while reducing infrastructure overhead.
"AI is becoming infrastructure — the foundation for intelligence in every industry — and land, power and shell have become vital in the age of AI," said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang. "Now is the time to scale the AI infrastructure that will power the next industrial revolution."
The scale of the project extends beyond the data center itself. SB Energy and SoftBank plan to build at least 10 GW of new energy generation to support 8 IT-GW of AI factory capacity.
They also plan to invest at least $4.2 billion in new regional grid infrastructure through a partnership with AEP Ohio.
The planned capacity is expected to begin coming online in phases in 2028. The campus spans private and federal land around the decommissioned Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and is being developed in collaboration with AEP Ohio, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Nvidia's $1.5 billion investment will make it a joint investor with SoftBank Group and OpenAI in SB Energy. Nvidia said the investment will support SB Energy's continued development as an AI infrastructure provider and its commitments to Pike County and surrounding communities.
OpenAI has also agreed to contribute an additional $40 million to SB Energy's previously announced $40 million community benefits fund, bringing the total to $80 million.
The investment is intended to support affordable energy, job creation, workforce development and other local priorities.
For Nvidia, the deal secures long-term infrastructure on which its computing technology can be deployed and upgraded as new generations become available.
"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 said.