The deal disclosed in a securities filing Monday makes Nvidia the financial backstop for a data center it does not own, at a site with a Cold War past. The campus, planned for Pike County, Ohio, would eventually draw 8 gigawatts of power, and Nvidia’s guaranty can reach $105B.
OpenAI is the anchor tenant under a 20-year lease. The developer is SB Energy, a SoftBank-owned company, working at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus on land the US Energy Department owns. The first 4.25 gigawatts will run Nvidia’s DSX AI factory platform, and Nvidia may extend credit support to roughly 3.8 gigawatts more at its own discretion.
Nvidia’s exposure is conditional: payments only start if OpenAI defaults or goes insolvent, and OpenAI indemnifies the chipmaker for anything it pays. The developer aims to open capacity in stages from 2028, and Nvidia is adding a $1.5B equity stake in SB Energy, where SoftBank and OpenAI are already investors.
Power for the site comes from a planned 9.2-gigawatt natural gas plant carrying a $33B price tag, a sign of how much energy costs now shape AI expansion. Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, framed the arrangement as securing long-lived infrastructure that can be upgraded chip generation after chip generation, while OpenAI says the project brings community investment and thousands of Southern Ohio jobs.
