NVIDIA secures Ohio AI campus for OpenAI, invests $1.5B in SB Energy

This announcement represents a strategic alignment between three major players in AI infrastructure: NVIDIA securing compute capacity, OpenAI anchoring demand as the customer, and SB Energy developing the physical campus itself with backing from SoftBank. The partnership addresses a fundamental constraint in the AI buildout — land, power, and shell capacity have become scarce resources as demand for AI compute grows exponentially. By investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy, NVIDIA is not merely reserving capacity but actively shaping the infrastructure ecosystem to ensure its technology stack (DSX AI factory platform combining GPUs, CPUs, and networking) remains at the center of large-scale deployments.

The Ohio location is significant both economically and politically. PORTS-Pike is being developed on the site of a decommissioned Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, positioning the project as a reindustrialization effort for Appalachian Ohio. The accompanying commitments — at least 10 GW of new energy generation, $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure, and $80 million in community benefits (split between $40 million originally announced and OpenAI's incremental $40 million) — suggest the partners are attempting to manage both local stakeholder concerns and ensure the region's power grid can support the operation. The phased ramp beginning in 2028 allows time for planning and construction while signaling near-term certainty for all parties involved.