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August 17, 2026
Nvidia’s $105 Billion Ohio AI Bet Raises the Stakes on Power and Risk
Nvidia is backing OpenAI’s Ohio data-center plan with up to $105 billion in credit support, promising jobs and community investment while putting enormous gas-fired power demand—and fears over AI financing—under scrutiny.
Nvidia’s huge financial backstop for an OpenAI campus in southern Ohio turns a former uranium-enrichment site into a test of how far the AI boom can stretch power grids, balance sheets and local trust.
The project, known as PORTS-Pike, is planned for Pike County on private land and remediated federal property once used by the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. OpenAI has agreed to lease roughly 8 gigawatts of computing capacity from SoftBank-owned SB Energy, while Nvidia becomes the site’s exclusive compute-infrastructure supplier.1
On Monday, Nvidia said it would invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and provide as much as $105 billion in credit support for the initial buildout. The campus could grow from 4.25 to 8 IT gigawatts, while plans envision 9.2 gigawatts of gas-fired generation—a scale that underlines the energy intensity behind frontier AI.2
OpenAI’s case is that the campus can be a regional economic engine rather than a burden on households. It projects 35,000 construction jobs through the six-year buildout ending in 2032 and 2,500 permanent operating jobs, alongside $40 million in new community grants on top of SB Energy’s prior $40 million commitment.1 The company says, “The project will pay its own energy and infrastructure costs,” including grid upgrades and transmission, rather than shifting them to regional ratepayers.1
That assurance collides with a broader concern: whether AI’s suppliers, customers and investors are becoming too financially intertwined. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang rejected the criticism, saying, “Is this circular financing? No. OpenAI will pay the lease.”3 Still, the guarantee is vast, and the planned gas buildout comes as construction costs have surged and new plants may compete with export markets for fuel.2
The timeline is long but consequential. The first 800 megawatts are expected in 2028, largely using existing AEP infrastructure; later expansion depends on permits, environmental reviews, financing, new generation and transmission. OpenAI says it will begin paying only when completed capacity is delivered.1