OpenAI has agreed to secure roughly 8 gigawatts of capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, working alongside SB Energy, NVIDIA and the US Department of Energy.
The site sits on land connected to the former Portsmouth gaseous diffusion plant, with the first 800 megawatts expected to come online in 2028 using existing grid infrastructure. Further expansion will require new power plants, including natural gas generation, along with additional transmission capacity. SB Energy will build, own and operate the data centre under a 20-year lease, with OpenAI as the customer and NVIDIA supplying the compute hardware. NVIDIA is also investing $1.5 billion directly in SB Energy and backing the initial phase of construction.
OpenAI says the project will fund its own energy and infrastructure costs rather than passing them to local ratepayers, and will use closed-loop, air-cooled systems to limit water consumption. The company is pledging $40 million toward a community grant fund shaped by local priorities, on top of a matching $40 million already committed by SB Energy, and up to $84 million in Codex credits for eligible Ohio college students.
The buildout is projected to run through 2032, generating an estimated 35,000 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent operating roles, with OpenAI committing to annual public reporting on hiring, water use and energy consumption.
