:COUNTER
$105 billion guaranteed by Nvidia to back OpenAI's Ohio AI factory
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:INFO
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.
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:STATS
[icon:FIRE] Nvidia guarantee to SB Energy | up to $105 billion
[icon:CHART] Total IT compute capacity | 8 gigawatts
[icon:CHART] Energy generation to power the campus | 10 gigawatts
[icon:CHART] Phase one compute (initial build) | 4.25 gigawatts, online from 2028
[icon:CHART] Optional phase two expansion | additional 3.75 gigawatts
[icon:STAR] Nvidia chips deployed at full build-out | approx. 1.5 million GPUs
[icon:STAR] Potential Nvidia chip revenue from site (to 2030) | $150B to $200B
[icon:CLOCK] Lease term | 20 years (OpenAI as tenant)
[icon:TARGET] Construction jobs supported | 35,000 through 2032
[icon:TARGET] Long-term operating roles | 2,500 permanent positions
[icon:CHART] Nvidia equity investment in SB Energy | $1.5 billion
[icon:CHART] Community benefits fund | $80 million
[icon:CHART] Ohio college Codex credits (OpenAI) | $84 million
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:TIMELINE
🏗️⚡🤖
2026-08-17 | Nvidia files with the SEC confirming the $105B guarantee to SB Energy. OpenAI signs 20-year lease for PORTS-Pike campus in Pike County, Ohio.
2026-08-17 | Nvidia also commits $1.5B equity to SB Energy. OpenAI and SoftBank had already invested $1B in SB Energy earlier in 2026.
SB Energy begins building the 9.2 GW natural gas power plant and first data halls on former uranium enrichment federal land.
2028-01-01 | First 800 megawatts of compute capacity expected online. Phase one supports 4.25 GW total, with option to expand to 8 GW.
2032-01-01 | Full six-year construction period ends. 35,000 construction jobs supported, plus 2,500 permanent operating roles upon completion.
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:NOTE.half
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."
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:NOTE.half
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.
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:QUOTE [quotetype:plain, subtitle:Greg Brockman · President · OpenAI · August 2026]
Compute is really becoming the new oil, the new limited resource of the AI age.
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:NOTE
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.
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:LINK
https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-guarantees-sb-energy-s-ports-pike-technology-campus-in-ohio-to-exclusively-host-nvidia-ai-compute
Nvidia press release: PORTS-Pike Technology Campus announcement
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:LINK
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/17/nvidia-financing-open-ai-data-center-ohio.html
CNBC: Nvidia backing $105 billion for OpenAI data center in Ohio