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OpenAI Pursues 10-Gigawatt Ohio Site
Coverage from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and others
Articles
19
Active Days
78
The Topic
OpenAI is pursuing a proposed 10-gigawatt data center in southern Ohio, developed by SoftBank, with Nvidia discussing a $250 billion financial backstop and as much as $350 billion in chip financing. The site would use federally controlled power supported by Japan, but the tenant, financing, government approvals, and construction schedule remain unsettled; the first phase is targeted for 2028. Related Nvidia partnerships with SK Group in South Korea show a parallel effort to secure large-scale computing capacity and advanced memory supply.
First Article: 05/12/26
Latest Article: 07/28/26
Summary
- OpenAI is in advanced discussions to lease a proposed 10-gigawatt site in southern Ohio developed by SoftBank’s energy subsidiary.
- Nvidia is discussing a roughly $250 billion backstop for lease and debt obligations, plus potential financing for up to $350 billion in chips.
- The first Ohio phase is expected to provide about 800 megawatts by 2028, although the overall project remains early-stage and unfinalized.
- Power access is controlled by the U.S. government and linked to Japanese funding under a broader trade and investment arrangement.
- Anthropic, Microsoft, and Google have also expressed interest in the Ohio site or its available power.
- Nvidia’s parallel South Korean initiative pairs SK Telecom data centers with Nvidia systems and SK Hynix high-bandwidth memory, with an initial facility targeted for 2027.
- The proposed financing connects data center construction, chip purchases, and long-term AI demand, creating exposure to both project execution and OpenAI’s ability to meet obligations.
History
The Ohio AI data center story is now framed more concretely around an OpenAI lease negotiation and a large Nvidia backstop, with the site’s land status and power access details newly specified. The update also sharpens the financing-risk angle by emphasizing unresolved tenant, debt, and approval questions.
The story now frames the Ohio and South Korea projects as a broader Nvidia-led push to assemble huge AI data centers through financing, chips, and partnerships, rather than mainly an OpenAI-hosted Ohio deal. It also adds a clearer sense of scale and execution risk, with the Ohio buildout now described as far costlier and longer to complete.
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Timeline: 78 Days
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