$105billion guaranteed by Nvidia to back OpenAI's Ohio AI factory
The Deal Nobody Saw Coming
On August 17, 2026, Nvidia filed with the SEC to confirm it had guaranteed up to 105 billion dollars in conditional lease and power payment obligations to SB Energy, the developer building a massive AI campus in Pike County, Ohio. Nvidia will be the exclusive compute provider, supplying GPUs, CPUs, networking and infrastructure software under its DSX AI factory platform. OpenAI will operate the campus under a 20-year lease, with SB Energy building and managing the facility. The site has an unusual history. PORTS-Pike Technology Campus sits on federal land formerly used to enrich uranium. SB Energy is transforming it into what would be among the largest data centers on earth, powered by a new 9.2-gigawatt natural gas plant alongside renewables. Jensen Huang called it "a world-class AI factory." Greg Brockman described compute as "the new oil." Elon Musk said it would take much longer than anyone thinks.
Nvidia guarantee to SB Energy
up to $105 billion
Total IT compute capacity
8 gigawatts
Energy generation to power the campus
10 gigawatts
Phase one compute (initial build)
4.25 gigawatts, online from 2028
Optional phase two expansion
additional 3.75 gigawatts
Nvidia chips deployed at full build-out
approx. 1.5 million GPUs
Potential Nvidia chip revenue from site (to 2030)
$150B to $200B
Lease term
20 years (OpenAI as tenant)
Construction jobs supported
35,000 through 2032
Long-term operating roles
2,500 permanent positions
Nvidia equity investment in SB Energy
$1.5 billion
Community benefits fund
$80 million
Ohio college Codex credits (OpenAI)
$84 million
Jensen Huang, Nvidia CEO: "OpenAI will build and operate a world-class AI factory at PORTS-Pike. The AI factory will use Nvidia's full-stack DSX platform, including GPUs, CPUs, networking and infrastructure software."
The campus sits on the same land where the US government once enriched uranium for nuclear weapons. SB Energy holds the long-term site lease from the federal government and will build a 9.2 GW natural gas plant to supply the campus.
"Compute is really becoming the new oil, the new limited resource of the AI age.
"Greg Brockman · President · OpenAI · August 2026
Elon Musk responded on X: "This will take much longer to bring online than they think." Separately, economists have flagged that Nvidia guaranteeing over 100 billion in third-party obligations, while also raising capital for data center financing platforms, could concentrate systemic risk in a single chip supplier. Nvidia is simultaneously vendor, financier and infrastructure guarantor.
