Key takeaways
- NVIDIA will provide credit support for an initial 4.25 IT-GW of land, power and shell capacity at SB Energy’s PORTS-Pike campus, with an option on another 3.75 IT-GW.
- OpenAI will be the customer for the full 8 IT-GW under a 20-year lease; SB Energy will build, own and operate the Ohio data center.
- CNBC reported that NVIDIA will provide up to $105 billion for credit and compute. “Up to” is a ceiling, not money already spent.
- The first capacity is expected to come online in phases beginning in 2028. None of the announced capacity is operating today.
- NVIDIA will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy. SB Energy and SoftBank also say they will build at least 10 GW of generation and invest at least $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure.
What NVIDIA is backing
NVIDIA announced on August 17, 2026 that it had secured land, power and shell capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio. Under the agreement, NVIDIA will be the campus’s exclusive AI-compute infrastructure provider and OpenAI will be the customer.
The initial commitment is credit support for 4.25 IT-GW of AI-factory capacity. NVIDIA also has an option covering the remaining 3.75 IT-GW, which would take the campus to the 8 IT-GW planned for OpenAI.
That wording matters. The deal supports the infrastructure needed to build the campus; it does not mean 4.25 IT-GW of compute is already installed or guaranteed to be online now. The companies say capacity will arrive in phases beginning in 2028.
How the 20-year lease is structured
SB Energy will build, own and operate the data center under a 20-year lease to OpenAI. OpenAI is identified as the customer for 8 IT-GW of capacity, while NVIDIA supplies the compute stack.
The campus will use NVIDIA’s DSX AI-factory platform, including GPUs, CPUs and networking. NVIDIA says the architecture is intended to support repeated upgrades across product generations. That is the company’s design claim, not a measured result from an operating PORTS-Pike facility.
Capacity and credit at a glance
| Deal term | Announced value | What it represents |
|---|---|---|
| Initial NVIDIA-backed capacity | 4.25 IT-GW | Land, power and shell credit support for the initial deployment |
| NVIDIA option | 3.75 IT-GW | Additional capacity that could bring the campus total to 8 IT-GW |
| OpenAI customer capacity | 8 IT-GW | Planned AI-factory capacity under the lease |
| Lease term | 20 years | OpenAI lease from SB Energy |
| Financing ceiling | Up to $105 billion | Credit and compute financing reported by CNBC |
| Expected first phases | 2028 | Company timetable, not current operating capacity |
Power and grid commitments
The data-center figure and the energy figure are related but not interchangeable. SB Energy and SoftBank say they will build at least 10 GW of new generation, which the announcement links to 8 IT-GW of AI-factory capacity. They also plan to invest at least $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure through a partnership with AEP Ohio designed to protect ratepayers.
These are forward-looking commitments. They should not be read as 10 GW of generation already built, 8 IT-GW already energized, or a statement that grid upgrades have been completed.
Investment and community commitments
NVIDIA will make a $1.5 billion investment in SB Energy. The project announcement also describes an $80 million total community-benefits commitment: SB Energy’s previously announced $40 million fund plus an additional $40 million from OpenAI.
CNBC reported OpenAI’s estimate that the project will support 35,000 construction jobs through 2032 and 2,500 long-term positions. Those are company projections rather than current employment counts.
What the exclusivity does—and does not—cover
The announcement makes NVIDIA the exclusive AI-compute infrastructure provider at PORTS-Pike. It does not establish that every OpenAI data center, or every OpenAI workload, is exclusive to NVIDIA.
For NVIDIA, the strategic value is clear: credit support and an equity investment help reserve a very large future site for its systems. For OpenAI, the agreement ties a long-duration lease to a power-first campus and a named compute supplier. For SB Energy, it pairs an anchor tenant with a financing backstop and a planned generation buildout.
Those are implications of the disclosed structure, not proof that every phase will be financed, permitted and delivered on the announced timetable.
Bottom line
PORTS-Pike combines three commitments: NVIDIA-backed infrastructure for an initial 4.25 IT-GW, an option for another 3.75 IT-GW, and a 20-year OpenAI lease covering 8 IT-GW. The financing ceiling is up to $105 billion, and the first phases are expected in 2028.
The scale is significant, but the accurate reading is a planned, phased buildout—not operating capacity today. The milestones that matter next are financing draws, generation and grid construction, data-center delivery, and the first energized AI-factory capacity.
Sources
This article was researched and fact-checked against the following sources:
- NVIDIA Corporation - NVIDIA Guarantees SB Energy's PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio to Exclusively Host NVIDIA AI Compute (investor.nvidia.com)
- NVIDIA Guarantees SB Energy’s PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio to Exclusively Host NVIDIA AI Compute | NVIDIA Newsroom (nvidianews.nvidia.com)
- Nvidia backing $105 billion in financing for OpenAI data center in Ohio (cnbc.com)
- NVIDIA's Credit Support Buys Exclusivity at OpenAI's Ohio Data Center - Futurum (futurumgroup.com)
- NVIDIA Secures AI Compute at PORTS-Pike Technology Campus (sbenergy.com)
