A former uranium-enrichment site in southern Ohio is being recast as an engine for the AI era. The promise is enormous—so is the question of who ultimately bears the risk if the boom fails to deliver.

OpenAI has agreed to lease capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus, which SB Energy will build, own and operate. The project is designed to reach roughly 8 gigawatts of IT capacity, with the first 800 megawatts expected in 2028; the wider six-year buildout is projected to run through 2032.¹

OpenAI’s pitch is explicitly local. It says the campus could create 35,000 construction jobs and 2,500 long-term operating roles, alongside an additional $40 million community fund on top of SB Energy’s existing $40 million commitment. The company also says the project—not regional households—will cover the required grid upgrades and transmission lines: “Those costs will not be shifted to Ohio or other ratepayers in the region.”¹

The financing arrangement, however, is where the optimism meets its sharpest challenge. Nvidia will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and provide up to $105 billion in credit support for lease and power obligations tied to the initial buildout. OpenAI says it will pay only when completed capacity is available, financing those commitments with business revenue, cash flow and investor capital.¹

Critics see that architecture as another example of AI’s self-reinforcing money machine: the dominant chipmaker helps enable a customer’s infrastructure, then becomes its exclusive compute supplier. Nvidia’s guarantee was ultimately capped at $105 billion, down from reports that it had considered roughly $250 billion—a reduction that sharpened questions about “artificial demand for chips” and whether AI spending is being financed from inside the industry itself.²

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang rejects that framing. “Is this circular financing? No. OpenAI will pay the lease,” he said, arguing Nvidia is using its scale and long-term visibility to make the campus possible.³ The dispute now turns on execution: whether new power, permits and financing arrive on time—and whether demand for AI services becomes large enough to justify one of the sector’s boldest infrastructure wagers.