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Nvidia Confirms Financial Backing for 4.25GW of OpenAI Capacity at Ports-Pike Mega Data Center

By: IDCNOVARegion: North America
Nvidia has officially confirmed reports that it is financially supporting SoftBank's massive data center project at the Portsmouth Site in Pike County, Ohio. The facility, led by SB Energy, is set to be fully leased to OpenAI and could eventually expand to 10GW, which would make it the world's largest data center. Nvidia's initial support will cover the first 4.25GW of capacity.

In a LinkedIn post, Nvidia CEO and founder Jensen Huang confirmed that the company would partner with SB Energy to help secure land, power, and shell (LPS) capacity at the Department of Energy (DOE) site. While Huang offered limited details about the arrangement, reports indicate that the GPU giant is considering providing a $120bn backstop for the project to help lower debt costs. Nvidia had initially planned to support as much as $250bn but faced investor pushback over the extent of the risk involved.

As part of the deal, Nvidia will also invest $1.5bn in SB Energy, down from a previously reported $3bn. SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary preparing for an IPO, is set to build 10GW of new power generation, including 9.2GW of natural gas generation, to power the facility. This is expected to provide up to 8GW of total IT load. Additionally, SB Energy and SoftBank plan to invest at least $4.2bn in new regional grid infrastructure through a partnership with AEP Ohio, a move they say is designed to protect ratepayers.

"Nvidia is supporting the LPS infrastructure at Ports-Pike for approximately 4GW over a 20-year term, securing a site on which Nvidia compute will be exclusively deployed," Huang said. "Our support is limited to defined portions of lease and power payments, along with a specified residual-value commitment — not the full cost of the site or all of the tenant's obligations. The guarantee will become effective in phases as data centers are placed in service between 2028 and 2030. As OpenAI makes lease payments and capacity comes online, Nvidia's remaining exposure declines."

Huang explained that most companies will secure LPS independently and then purchase Nvidia hardware, but leading AI labs are "growing faster than their balance sheets and long-term credit profiles can support." Ports-Pike will not only exclusively feature Nvidia GPUs but also the company's full-stack DSX AI factory platform, including CPUs, networking, and infrastructure software. Over the course of 20 years, the site is expected to host multiple generations of Nvidia equipment.

"Each generation of Nvidia AI factory systems deployed at Ports-Pike could represent approximately 1.5 million Nvidia GPUs, or approximately $150 billion to $200 billion in Nvidia revenue," Huang said. The company may still decide to secure the remaining capacity of 3.75GW at the site.

Huang also addressed accusations of circular financing, a criticism Nvidia has increasingly faced as it funnels profits back into AI companies that purchase its hardware. "Nvidia uses its scale and long-term visibility to secure Ports-Pike to host Nvidia compute," he said. "This is the same discipline we apply to supply-chain management: we secure critical inputs when we have visibility into customer demand and when doing so enables long-term productive capacity."