Nvidia invests $1.5B in Ohio mega data center for OpenAI

Nvidia will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy, majority-owned by SoftBank, to help build an eight-gigawatt Ohio data center for OpenAI. The facility, estimated to cost $500 billion at today's prices, will be leased to OpenAI for 20 years and is expected to secure up to 10 gigawatts of power, mostly from natural gas. This investment is part of a broader $100 billion+ in credit support Nvidia has extended to OpenAI, and it positions Nvidia to supply the GPUs that will outfit the massive campus. The project adds to OpenAI's other infrastructure partnerships with Oracle and SoftBank, though much of that planned capacity has yet to come online.

For Nvidia, this deal is another opportunity to secure demand for its AI chips, which still command over 85% market share despite custom chip efforts from hyperscalers. Nvidia's data center revenue and profits—$120 billion net profit last year—give it the financial power to invest heavily in AI infrastructure projects and raise debt. Meanwhile, OpenAI is juggling $1.4 trillion in committed infrastructure across roughly 30 gigawatts of capacity, against a $40 billion revenue run rate and no near-term profitability. With an IPO expected within 12 months, OpenAI faces pressure to manage costs, especially as rivals like Anthropic approach public markets and open-weight Chinese models undercut pricing. The Ohio data center remains a massive bet on AI's future, and Nvidia is ensuring it will be the chipmaker powering that bet.