Aug 17 (Reuters) – Nvidia has agreed to guarantee as much as $105 billion in lease payments to help OpenAI secure a sprawling data center in Ohio being developed by SoftBank-backed SB Energy, in one of the chipmaker’s largest infrastructure financing commitments.
The chip giant will also invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and secure up to 8 gigawatts of AI computing capacity at the campus, where the data center developer will build, own and operate a campus for OpenAI under a 20-year lease, the companies said on Monday.
The deal is the latest example of Nvidia financing the infrastructure built around its chips, a strategy that helps drive demand but has also raised questions about circular funding flows between the chip giant and its customers.
Nvidia has secured land and power for the facility in Pike County, Ohio, for an AI data center with an initial capacity of 4.25 GW, expected to come online in phases beginning in 2028. One gigawatt is enough electricity to power roughly 750,000 U.S. homes.
The chip giant will exclusively provide AI compute infrastructure at the campus and is providing credit support for land, power and shell construction tied to the initial capacity. It also has an option to secure the remaining 3.75 GW.
Leading tech firms are increasingly tying together chips, power and data center development as they race to meet soaring AI demand, while aging grids, lengthy approval processes and scarce land and power capacity constrain new projects.
SoftBank and SB Energy plan to build at least 10 GW of new power generation and invest $4.2 billion in new regional grid infrastructure through a partnership with AEP Ohio.
The project is expected to create about 35,000 construction jobs through 2032 and about 2,500 long-term operating jobs, the ChatGPT maker said.
OpenAI’s spending on the company’s chips is expected to amount to about $600 billion of compute capacity through 2030, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a blog post.
Nvidia’s investment in SB Energy follows OpenAI and SoftBank’s $1 billion investment in January to expand data center and power infrastructure supporting their Stargate AI initiative.
Last week, Nvidia partnered with six major financial institutions to launch compute financing platforms targeting over $500 billion in third-party funding for AI infrastructure as demand surges for data centers supporting AI workloads.
(Reporting by Anhata Rooprai in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
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