OpenAI has entered an agreement to secure about 8 gigawatts‑IT of capacity at the PORTS‑Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio. The development involves SB Energy, NVIDIA and the U.S. Department of Energy. The companies say they will work as partners with Pike County — covering project‑specific energy and infrastructure costs, using water responsibly, creating opportunities for local workers and businesses, and making long‑term investments informed by community priorities.
Jobs, community funds and student access
According to the announcement, the project’s six‑year buildout through 2032 could create roughly 35,000 construction jobs and about 2,500 long‑term operating jobs. OpenAI will invest $40 million in a community grant fund to support locally identified priorities; this commitment is presented as building on SB Energy’s previously announced $40 million pledge. Separately, OpenAI will provide $84 million in Codex credits via ChatGPT to give every Ohio college student access to the technology.
Site, timing and infrastructure needs
SB Energy is developing the project across private land and remediated land controlled by the U.S. Department of Energy at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The companies state the first 800 megawatts are expected to be available in 2028, largely using existing American Electric Power (AEP) infrastructure. Further phases will require new generation connected to the grid — including natural gas capacity — and new transmission lines and associated infrastructure. Progress depends on permits, environmental reviews, financing and the availability of necessary infrastructure.
Financial and operating structure
SB Energy will build, own and operate the data center and has a 20‑year lease agreement with OpenAI, delivering capacity over time. OpenAI will act as the customer and the site will exclusively host NVIDIA AI compute infrastructure. OpenAI will begin payments only as completed capacity becomes available for lease and intends to fund commitments through revenue, cash flow and capital raised from investors.
NVIDIA will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and provide credit support for the land, power and shell buildout associated with the initial 4.25 IT‑GW. Additional development phases are contingent on infrastructure, permits, environmental reviews and financing being in place.
Technical collaboration and knowledge sharing
NVIDIA and OpenAI will collaborate on design, testing and commissioning. The companies plan to jointly publish a technical white paper describing lessons from PORTS‑Pike, including how resilient infrastructure design, rigorous data center component qualification and software‑level workload management can support higher compute availability, greater reliability and longer mean time between interruptions at cluster scale. The project is presented as a potential model for future next‑generation supercomputer and large‑scale AI data center design.
Why it matters
OpenAI frames large AI data centers as a core physical element underpinning advanced AI: together with chips, power and high‑speed networks, they enable development of more capable systems and make tools like ChatGPT and Codex more reliable, affordable and accessible to more people and businesses. The company reiterates its mission to ensure benefits of general artificial intelligence are broadly shared and emphasizes a responsibility to ensure communities hosting such infrastructure receive meaningful benefits.
Next steps and conditions
The full data center will be built in stages rather than all at once. The announcement notes the project’s advance requires the necessary permits, environmental reviews, new generation and transmission capacity, and financing. SB Energy has published additional details on portscampus.com.
(This article is based on the factual details provided in OpenAI’s announcement.)
