Nvidia backs Ohio OpenAI data centre project with more than $100bn commitment

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Nvidia backs Ohio OpenAI datacentre

Highlights

Nvidia will provide up to $105bn in credit support for the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio, with first 800MW online in 2028 and completion by 2032.
SB Energy will build, own and operate the data centre under a 20-year lease with OpenAI as anchor tenant, and Nvidia is investing $1.5bn in SB Energy.
Nvidia estimates revenue of $150bn–$200bn as exclusive computing systems supplier for the Ohio site, with OpenAI chip spend potentially reaching $600bn by 2030.

Financing structure and project timeline

As reported by Financial Times, Nvidia has agreed to provide credit support capped at $105bn for the land, power and shell of the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, a facility being developed for OpenAI alongside SB Energy.

OpenAI plans to lease as much as 8 gigawatts of AI computing power at the site, which is due to be completed by 2032. The company says the first 800 megawatts is expected to come online in 2028, while SB Energy will build, own and operate the data centre under a 20-year lease with OpenAI as the main customer.

Nvidia says its obligation is conditional on the Ohio facility being ready to begin operating in 2028. The company says the site will eventually house more than 1mn of its AI chips.

AI infrastructure race and market implications

Nvidia is also investing $1.5bn in SB Energy, an energy company founded as part of SoftBank Group in 2019 that has recently shifted its focus toward data centre development after forming a $1bn alliance with OpenAI in January.

The deal adds to a broader wave of capital commitments by major technology groups including Nvidia, Google and Amazon, which are using their balance sheets to deepen ties with AI developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. The agreement also follows last week's $500bn deal between Nvidia and a consortium of Wall Street firms aimed at accelerating AI infrastructure development.

Chief executive Jensen Huang says the arrangement does not amount to circular financing and argues that Nvidia is using its scale and long-term visibility to support construction of critical AI capacity. He says land, power and shell have become major constraints on AI factory deployment, and adds that Nvidia could generate $150bn to $200bn in revenue from the Ohio site as the exclusive computing systems supplier.

Based on Huang's estimate, OpenAI's spending on Nvidia chips could reach as much as $600bn by 2030 if the company expands the Ohio project beyond its initial 4.25 gigawatt commitment.

In our earlier report on Nvidia’s talks to invest in SB Energy for an OpenAI-linked Ohio data center campus, we outlined discussions that combined equity funding with roughly $100bn in potential credit support. We also noted that SB Energy was weighing a near-term IPO, with parts of Nvidia’s proposed investment potentially tied to the listing as AI infrastructure demand accelerates.

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