Nvidia will provide up to US$105 billion in financing and computing capacity for a new artificial intelligence data centre being developed for OpenAI in Ohio.
The financing will support an initial 4.25 gigawatts of computing capacity, with an option to expand by a further 3.75 gigawatts. Nvidia will supply the computing infrastructure, with capacity expected to come online in phases from 2028.
SB Energy will build and operate the data centre at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, under a 20-year lease to OpenAI. OpenAI holds a stake in SB Energy, while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was an early investor in the company.
“We are securing long-lived infrastructure for NVIDIA compute so OpenAI can deploy the most productive AI factories that can be upgraded repeatedly with each new generation delivering more intelligence and better economics,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said.
The agreement is Nvidia's latest move to support the rapid expansion of AI data centre infrastructure, as technology companies race to secure the computing capacity required to develop and operate increasingly advanced AI models.
The scale of the financing has also raised concerns about circular financing within the AI industry, where major technology companies and investors provide capital or financing to one another to fund infrastructure and computing expansion.
Last week, Nvidia partnered with six major asset managers to establish financing platforms targeting up to $500 billion in third-party capital for data centre projects.
As part of the Ohio project, SB Energy and SoftBank will develop power sources capable of supporting 10 gigawatts of energy and invest at least $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure. Nvidia will separately invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy.
OpenAI said the project is expected to support 35,000 construction jobs through 2032, along with 2,500 permanent positions.
The new facility will expand OpenAI's access to high-end Nvidia chips and computing capacity, which are critical to training and running increasingly sophisticated AI systems.
