Nvidia announced on August 17 that it will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and provide credit support for the first 4.25 IT-gigawatts of the PORTS-Pike campus in Ohio. OpenAI will use the site under a 20-year lease, while Nvidia will be its exclusive AI-compute provider and may take the remaining 3.75 IT-gigawatts. The first capacity is planned from 2028.
Nvidia announced on August 17 that it will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and provide credit support for land, power and data-center-shell construction at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio. Nvidia will be the campus's exclusive AI-compute infrastructure provider.
SB Energy plans to build, own and operate the data center, while OpenAI will be the customer under a 20-year lease. Nvidia says the initial deployment is designed for 4.25 IT-gigawatts of AI-factory capacity and that it has an option on the remaining 3.75 IT-gigawatts. The site would use Nvidia's DSX platform across GPUs, CPUs, networking, software and facility infrastructure.
The commitment extends beyond chip supply
The arrangement joins compute hardware with physical capacity. Nvidia is not only supplying systems: it is investing in the developer and supporting defined portions of the land, power and shell buildout. India Today reports that OpenAI remains the tenant responsible for lease payments, while Nvidia's support helps secure the infrastructure needed for repeated generations of its systems.
SB Energy and SoftBank plan at least 10 gigawatts of new energy generation to support eight IT-gigawatts of AI-factory capacity. Nvidia's release says the campus is expected to come online in phases beginning in 2028. OpenAI has also agreed to add $40 million to an existing $40 million community-benefits fund.
What remains forward-looking
The announcement describes a planned multiyear build, not operating capacity. Nvidia explicitly cautions that the site's development, timing, scale, operation, expansion and OpenAI's role remain subject to risks and uncertainties. Grid connections, generation, construction, cooling and commissioning still determine when usable compute becomes available.
For infrastructure teams, the project shows how frontier-model capacity planning now reaches past accelerator procurement into power, property, financing and facility delivery. The commercial significance is the integrated commitment; the practical capacity arrives only if those physical milestones are completed.
Key Points #
- 1Nvidia will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and provide credit support for the first 4.25 IT-gigawatts at the planned PORTS-Pike campus.
- 2OpenAI will use the Ohio site under a 20-year lease, and Nvidia will be the exclusive AI-compute infrastructure provider with an option on another 3.75 IT-gigawatts.
- 3Capacity is planned to arrive in phases from 2028, so grid, construction, cooling and commissioning remain material delivery risks.
Scoring Rationale #
Nvidia's $1.5 billion investment and credit support tie a major compute supplier directly to an eight-IT-gigawatt planned campus for OpenAI. The announcement is material to AI infrastructure planning because it integrates systems, power, property and financing, while its capacity and 2028 start remain forward-looking.
Sources #
Primary source and supporting public references used for this report.
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