OpenAI Weighs 10-Gigawatt Ohio Data Center Lease in Potential Nvidia-Backed Deal
OpenAI is in talks to lease a proposed 10-gigawatt data center campus on federal land in southern Ohio, a project that could include financial backing from Nvidia and rank among the largest AI infrastructure developments yet contemplated, The Information reported Tuesday.
The campus could cost at least $500 billion to build, based on current prices for chips, labor, power and other inputs, according to the report. SB Energy, a unit of SoftBank, would develop the facility on Department of Energy land, while OpenAI would control the computing equipment under a 20-year lease.
The first phase of the project is expected to begin operations in 2028, with OpenAI’s lease payments starting once the facility comes online. Nvidia is expected to supply hardware for the campus and provide a financial guarantee supporting OpenAI’s lease and SB Energy’s project financing, The Information reported, citing people with direct knowledge of the discussions.
The potential Ohio campus underscores the scale of infrastructure now being considered by leading AI companies as they race to secure long-term access to power, land and computing equipment. A 10-gigawatt development would be far larger than most data center campuses announced to date and would place OpenAI in the center of a new class of AI infrastructure projects whose energy requirements resemble heavy industrial facilities rather than traditional cloud campuses.
The reported structure also points to the increasingly intertwined roles of AI developers, chip suppliers and infrastructure financiers. Nvidia’s expected involvement would go beyond selling GPUs, tying the chipmaker more directly to the financing and credit support needed to build capacity for one of its most important customers.
The discussions come as OpenAI continues to evaluate massive compute commitments despite earlier setbacks in other markets. The company earlier this year paused its proposed Stargate data center project in the UK, citing regulatory hurdles and high energy costs. The Ohio talks suggest OpenAI is still pursuing large-scale expansion, but with a greater emphasis on sites where land availability, federal involvement and access to power could support the scale required.
The project would also add to growing concerns among grid operators and policymakers about how quickly the US power system can accommodate AI-driven electricity demand. Data center load growth has already become a major issue in PJM, the regional transmission organization that includes Ohio and much of the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest, where large-load interconnection requests have intensified debates over who should pay for the generation and transmission upgrades needed to serve new AI campuses.
