NVIDIA backs OpenAI's 8 IT-GW Ohio AI campus with a $105 billion guarantee and $1.5 billion equity stake

NVIDIA disclosed on 17 August 2026 that it has secured land, power and shell (LPS) capacity at SB Energy's PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, to exclusively host NVIDIA AI compute^[1]. OpenAI will be the sole customer, operating under a 20-year lease with SB Energy, which will build, own and operate the data center^[1]. A Form 8-K filed with the SEC the same day put the value of NVIDIA's credit guarantee at up to $105 billion.

Scale and structure of the deal

The initial deployment is designed for 4.25 IT-GW of AI factory capacity, with NVIDIA holding an option on the remaining 3.75 IT-GW, for a combined 8 IT-GW^[1]. NVIDIA's guarantee covers defined portions of lease and power payments, along with a residual-value commitment, and is structured to become effective in phases as data centers are placed in service between 2028 and 2030. The infrastructure will run on NVIDIA's full-stack DSX AI factory platform, integrating GPUs, CPUs and networking with the facility software^[1].

The campus is being developed at and around the decommissioned Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in southern Ohio, spanning private and federal land^[1]. AEP Ohio, the US Department of Energy and the US Department of Commerce are all involved in the project^[1], and capacity is expected to come online in phases beginning in 2028.

Jensen Huang, in a LinkedIn post confirming the deal, noted that each generation of NVIDIA AI factory systems deployed at PORTS-Pike could represent approximately 1.5 million NVIDIA GPUs, or roughly $150 billion to $200 billion in NVIDIA revenue.

Power and grid commitments

The scale of the compute build requires an equally large energy programme. The key commitments are:

• SB Energy and SoftBank will build at least 10 GW of new energy generation to support the 8 IT-GW of AI factory capacity^[1], including 9.2 GW of natural gas generation according to a Department of Energy fact sheet.
• SB Energy and AEP Ohio will invest at least $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure^[1], structured to protect ratepayers.
• An $80 million community benefits fund has been established - $40 million from SB Energy and a further $40 million committed by OpenAI - covering energy affordability, workforce development and local economic development^[1].
• OpenAI separately said the campus will support 35,000 construction jobs through 2032 and 2,500 long-term positions.

NVIDIA's $1.5 billion equity investment in SB Energy

Alongside the LPS guarantee, NVIDIA will invest $1.5 billion directly in SB Energy, joining existing investors SoftBank Group and OpenAI^[1]. Bank of America, which maintained a Buy rating on NVIDIA after the announcement, estimated that NVIDIA's total ecosystem capital commitments across all partners now stand at roughly $300 billion, comprising around $70 billion in equity and approximately $230 billion in credit arrangements. The Ohio deal is the largest single item in that portfolio.

The structure - a chip supplier guaranteeing the physical infrastructure its own hardware will fill - is a significant departure from NVIDIA's historical role as a component vendor. Whether the phased capacity schedule holds, and whether OpenAI's demand absorbs the full 8 IT-GW, are the two variables that will determine whether the guarantee ever crystallises into real payments.