OpenAI has signed the lease for a large data-center hub in Ohio, and Nvidia will be the exclusive chip provider for the first phase of the project. That is the core of a deal announced in mid-August 2026, reported by The Wall Street Journal and confirmed in filings and press releases from the companies involved. It is not a small site. It is built to run at a scale most of us do not see outside of power-plant maps.
Nvidia will take an equity stake in SoftBank’s SB Energy to power the Ohio site. The chipmaker said it will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy, the SoftBank unit developing and operating the campus in Pike County. OpenAI is the tenant under a 20-year lease. SB Energy will build, own and run the facility. Nvidia will supply the AI compute systems, including GPUs and networking gear, for the first half of the campus.
What the deal actually says
The numbers here are big because the power is big. The project is planned for up to 8 gigawatts of computing capacity, with the first 800 megawatts expected to come online in 2028. Early phases target around 4.25 gigawatts, with an option to expand by another 3.75 gigawatts. To feed that, SB Energy and SoftBank plan to build power sources supporting 10 gigawatts of energy and invest at least $4.2 billion into regional grid infrastructure.
Nvidia has agreed to guarantee up to $105 billion in conditional lease and power payment obligations to SB Energy, according to an SEC filing cited by multiple outlets. That guarantee is not a blank check. It is structured to backstop the value of the finished data center in the first phase, not to cover every chip purchase inside it. The arrangement is meant to help OpenAI raise debt financing without putting the full risk on one party.
OpenAI is leasing the site for 20 years. The campus sits on private land and federal property formerly used for uranium enrichment, now rebranded as the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus. The companies say the project could create 35,000 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent operating positions. Those figures come from the companies’ announcements. They are claims, not independent audits.
Why compute is now the revenue line
This is where the story stops being just about buildings and starts being about the new math of the AI economy. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO, put it plainly in a public statement tied to the deal. “In the AI economy, compute is revenue.” He said that. It is a short sentence with a long shadow.
Think about what that means. For years, tech revenue lived in software licenses, ads, and cloud hours. Now the bottleneck is raw compute, and the entity that controls the fastest, most reliable compute controls the cash flow. Nvidia sells chips for computers and other devices. It is financing the infrastructure that makes those chips the only game in town for this site. OpenAI uses space in big buildings for its work. It is locking in a long-term home for its models, separate from the big cloud providers it has leaned on until now.
I will tell you the part that makes me pause. This is a bet on a future where AI demand keeps climbing, where power grids can keep up, and where a single campus can absorb billions in financing without wobbling. It is also a bet that exclusivity makes sense. Nvidia will be the exclusive AI compute provider at PORTS-Pike for the first phase. That is a strong hand. It also means OpenAI’s flexibility inside this campus is tied to one vendor’s roadmap.
There are things we do not know yet. The final debt terms behind the $105 billion guarantee are not public in full detail. The timeline for the later phases depends on permitting, grid upgrades, and construction progress. The total cost of the project, including chips, has been reported in the hundreds of billions in earlier negotiations, but the final number for this lease and its expansions is not settled in a single public figure.
What we do know is documented. OpenAI has signed the lease. Nvidia will be the exclusive chip provider for the first phase. Nvidia will take an equity stake in SB Energy. Jensen Huang stated, “In the AI economy, compute is revenue.” Those are the facts on the table.
And here is the quiet moment. Stand in Pike County on a clear night and imagine the hum of servers where uranium once moved through pipes. Think about the workers who will wire the racks, the engineers who will tune the cooling, the families who will see new paychecks and new traffic on Route 23. Then think about the models that will run there, the products they will power, and the way a line of code can now pull a billion-dollar guarantee behind it.
This deal does not solve every problem in AI. It does not answer questions about energy mix, local impact, or how many of those 35,000 construction jobs turn into long-term roles. It does, however, mark a clear shift. Compute is no longer a back-office cost. It is the main stage. OpenAI is building on that stage in Ohio. Nvidia is financing the lights. And the rest of the industry is watching to see what happens when the curtain goes up.