NVIDIA Backs OpenAI’s Ohio Data Center With Up to $105 Billion: Power and Credit Risk Come First

Treating the $105 billion ceiling as money NVIDIA has already spent would overstate the deal’s immediate cash effect. That reading should change only if later financing documents show that the entire guarantee has been drawn.

On August 17, 2026, NVIDIA announced a partnership with SB Energy covering land, power, and shell capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio. NVIDIA will provide credit support and become the campus’s exclusive AI-compute infrastructure supplier. OpenAI will be the customer under a 20-year lease, while SB Energy will build, own, and operate the data center. Semafor reported that the credit backstop could reach $105 billion. NVIDIA’s release does not disclose how much has been drawn, the guarantee fee, or how losses would be allocated after a default.

Securing 4.25 IT-GW before the server halls exist

The initial deployment is designed for 4.25 IT-GW of AI-factory capacity. NVIDIA has an option on the remaining 3.75 IT-GW, bringing the capacity intended for OpenAI to 8 IT-GW. The campus will use NVIDIA’s DSX platform across GPUs, CPUs, and networking. This moves the chip supplier further upstream: its credit helps SB Energy finance the physical site, while exclusivity reserves the resulting equipment demand for NVIDIA systems.

The arrangement also reconnects infrastructure risk to NVIDIA. Construction delays, higher financing costs, or OpenAI demand below the lease assumptions could turn the guarantee into a loss. If the campus enters service as planned, NVIDIA secures a long-lived buyer for multiple generations of hardware. The $105 billion figure reported by Semafor is therefore a maximum exposure, not a verified construction cost. It must also be kept separate from NVIDIA’s announced $1.5 billion equity investment in SB Energy.

Ten gigawatts still have to cross the grid and schedule

SB Energy and SoftBank plan to build at least 10 GW of new generation and invest at least $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure through a partnership with AEP Ohio. The PORTS-Pike site says construction on an initial 800 MW phase is scheduled to begin in 2026, with capacity coming online in stages from 2028. OpenAI and SB Energy have also committed a combined $80 million to a community-benefits fund. These are planned values. Interconnection work, permits, equipment lead times, and construction execution will determine whether the promised 8 IT-GW becomes usable compute.

The project reuses the decommissioned Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and surrounding land. Concentrating development on an industrial site may help with land assembly, but it does not make transmission, generation, and data-center construction finish at the same time. NVIDIA’s own forward-looking statement warns that the development schedule, capacity, community effects, and demand may differ materially from expectations. The available evidence therefore establishes the contract structure and commitments, not the final cost or commissioning date.

Over the next three to six months, three disclosures would make the project easier to assess: the amount of financing SB Energy actually closes, verifiable grid milestones from AEP Ohio, and evidence that work starts on the first 800 MW phase. Those measures will show whether $105 billion remains primarily a credit ceiling or has begun turning into land, grid, and data-center assets.

Sources:

• NVIDIA Newsroom: NVIDIA Guarantees SB Energy’s PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio to Exclusively Host NVIDIA AI Compute
• Semafor: Nvidia to provide up to $105 billion backstop for OpenAI data center
• PORTS-Pike Technology Campus