NVIDIA, OpenAI and SoftBank Group have finalized plans for a massive artificial intelligence data center campus on the site of a former federal uranium-enrichment plant in Pike County, Ohio, according to an announcement from NVIDIA. NVIDIA is investing $1.5 billion directly in developer SB Energy and guaranteeing the infrastructure buildout that will make the project one of the largest AI construction efforts in the country.
The deal moves the project from the exploratory stage to a formal commitment. RealtyWire reported in July that NVIDIA was in talks to guarantee financing for OpenAI’s lease of the Ohio campus, with figures then floated as high as a $250 billion financing backstop tied to a $500 billion valuation for the project. Tuesday’s announcement details a different, more concrete structure: rather than a financing guarantee on OpenAI’s lease, NVIDIA is directly capitalizing SB Energy, the SoftBank subsidiary building and operating the campus, and committing to exclusively supply its AI computing hardware there.
The campus, known as the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus, sits on the grounds of the decommissioned Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, a former Cold War-era uranium enrichment facility in Pike County in southern Ohio. SB Energy and SoftBank plan to build at least 10 gigawatts of new energy generation to support the site, translating into 8 information-technology gigawatts of AI factory capacity once complete. An initial 4.25 IT-gigawatt phase is planned, with NVIDIA holding an option to extend its exclusive hosting rights to the campus’s full capacity. Construction phases are set to begin in 2028.
Beyond its direct stake in SB Energy, NVIDIA is backstopping $4.2 billion in new regional grid infrastructure investment tied to the project, and the companies are establishing a community benefits fund starting at $80 million with an additional $40 million committed later, for a total of $120 million earmarked for the Pike County area.
“AI is becoming infrastructure — the foundation for intelligence in every industry,” NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said in the announcement, framing the investment as part of the company’s broader push to lock down compute capacity for the next generation of AI systems.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, whose company will be the exclusive customer for compute at the site, said Pike County would sit “at the heart of American industry,” pointing to the companies’ commitments to local hiring and community investment as the project moves forward. SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son said the infrastructure being built would move “at unprecedented speed and scale” to support the pursuit of artificial general intelligence.
What it means: The financial structure disclosed Tuesday — a $1.5 billion direct NVIDIA investment in the developer, not a $250 billion lease-financing guarantee — is far more modest on its face than the numbers that circulated when the deal was still under discussion in July. That does not necessarily mean the total project cost has shrunk; NVIDIA, OpenAI and SoftBank did not disclose an overall project valuation Tuesday, and the $4.2 billion grid commitment and multi-phase build timeline suggest total capital spending across the campus’s life will run into the tens of billions of dollars once construction, hardware and power generation are included. RealtyWire’s analysis: the shift from a single mega-figure to itemized commitments (equity stake, grid investment, community fund) suggests the deal reached a more advanced, bankable stage than the July reporting captured, with specific dollar figures now tied to specific obligations rather than a headline valuation.
For the real estate and construction industry, the project is another data point in a rapidly growing pipeline of AI infrastructure repurposing former industrial and government sites — in this case, a shuttered federal nuclear facility — into some of the largest power-hungry building projects in the country. The $120 million community benefits commitment also reflects a pattern seen in other large data center deals, where developers are moving to offset local opposition to power demand and construction impacts with direct payments to host communities.
What to watch: Whether NVIDIA exercises its option to expand beyond the initial 4.25 IT-gigawatt phase, how the $4.2 billion grid investment is allocated among regional utilities, and whether construction stays on pace for its 2028 start given the scale of the power buildout required.
