TL;DR · 30-second read
The Short Version
- OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, will rent space in a huge computer campus planned on the grounds of an old Cold War uranium plant in rural southern Ohio.
- At full size, the campus would use about as much electricity as eight large nuclear reactors produce.
- Only about a tenth of that can come from today’s power lines, starting in 2028. The rest needs new power plants, including gas-fired ones, that have not been built yet.
- The developer promises to pay for the grid upgrades itself, so local electric bills do not cover them.
OpenAI announced on August 17 that it has agreed to secure approximately 8 gigawatts of IT capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, working with developer SB Energy, NVIDIA and the U.S. Department of Energy. The campus is being developed on private land and on remediated federal land at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. SB Energy will build, own and operate the data center under a 20-year lease to OpenAI, and the site will exclusively host NVIDIA AI computing hardware.
The first 800 megawatts are expected to be available in 2028, largely using existing AEP infrastructure. Later phases will require new grid-connected power plants, including natural gas generation, plus new transmission lines. NVIDIA will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and provide credit support for the land, power and shell buildout of the initial 4.25 gigawatts. The companies project 35,000 construction jobs over a six-year buildout through 2032 and 2,500 long-term operating jobs.
Executive Summary
The PORTS-Pike agreement is one of the largest single-site AI capacity commitments announced to date: roughly 8 gigawatts of power delivered to computing equipment, on a former uranium enrichment site in southern Ohio. OpenAI is the tenant, SB Energy is the developer and owner, NVIDIA is both the exclusive hardware supplier and a financial backer, and the Department of Energy is contributing federal land and an existing onsite water system.
The more telling number is the smaller one. Only the first 800 megawatts, about a tenth of the headline figure, is expected to come online in 2028 on largely existing grid infrastructure. Everything after that depends on new power plants and new transmission lines, along with permits, environmental reviews and financing that the companies say must still be in place. In practice, this is a power-development project with a data center attached, and its pace will be set by generation and wires rather than by chips.
The package also includes a pledge that SB Energy will pay the full cost of grid upgrades and new transmission rather than passing them to Ohio ratepayers, a closed-loop cooling design meant to limit ongoing water use, and more than $160 million in community grants and student software credits.
Nine-Tenths of the Campus Waits on Power That Does Not Yet Exist
The headline figure is 8 gigawatts-IT, a measure of the electricity delivered to servers and networking gear rather than the site’s total draw, which is higher once cooling and power conversion are counted. Against that, the companies say the first 800 megawatts should be available in 2028 “largely using existing AEP infrastructure,” meaning the transmission and substation capacity American Electric Power already has in the area. That is roughly 10% of the campus. The remaining 7 gigawatts or so, per OpenAI’s announcement, “will require new power plants connected to the grid, including natural gas generation, as well as new transmission lines and associated infrastructure.”
That split is the operational core of the deal. Existing wires are the fastest path to power for any large data center, because new generation and new high-voltage lines each require siting, permitting, interconnection studies and equipment procurement before a single rack can be energised. Gas turbines, transformers and high-voltage switchgear have all been in heavy demand as utilities and data center developers compete for the same supply chains. The six-year buildout window through 2032 signals that the companies expect most of the capacity to arrive only as that new infrastructure is completed.
The parties most exposed to this sequencing are OpenAI, whose compute roadmap depends on the later phases; SB Energy, which carries the development risk; AEP and PJM, the regional grid operator covering Ohio, which must study and integrate the new plants and lines; and NVIDIA, whose hardware sales at the site scale with each tranche of power that comes online.
Why a Former Uranium Plant Works as a Power-First AI Site
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant was built in the 1950s to enrich uranium, a process that consumed enormous amounts of electricity. That history left the area with heavy grid infrastructure, a large industrial footprint and federal land that has been under cleanup for years. For an AI campus, those legacy assets matter more than proximity to cities or fiber hubs: they are what allows the first 800 megawatts to arrive in 2028 instead of later.
The Department of Energy’s role extends beyond land. PORTS-Pike is working with DOE to use the site’s existing onsite water system, and the data center will use closed-loop, air-cooled systems that recirculate water rather than evaporative cooling towers, which continuously consume water. OpenAI says ongoing water use, once the system is filled, should be comparable to an office building supporting a similar number of people, and well below what the enrichment plant historically used. It has committed to publish expected water use once the design is final.
The model is replicable only where similar conditions exist: large parcels of already-disturbed land, legacy high-voltage infrastructure, and a federal owner willing to redevelop. Retired industrial and federal sites with those traits are a finite set, which is why they are becoming contested real estate for AI developers.
Who Carries the Financial Risk
The deal is structured to keep capital off OpenAI’s balance sheet up front. SB Energy builds and owns the facility, and OpenAI begins paying only as completed capacity becomes available for lease, funding those payments from revenue, cash flow and investor capital. That protects OpenAI from paying for capacity that is delayed, but it shifts construction and power-development risk to SB Energy and its financiers.
NVIDIA fills part of that gap. Its $1.5 billion investment in SB Energy and its credit support, a guarantee-like backing that lowers borrowing costs, cover land, power and shell buildout for the initial 4.25 gigawatts. Because the site will exclusively host NVIDIA hardware, the chipmaker is effectively helping finance demand for its own products. That aligns incentives among the three companies, but it also concentrates exposure: the project’s financing, customer and supplier are tightly linked, and the backing described covers just over half of the 8 gigawatts.
The Ratepayer Pledge Addresses the Biggest Local Objection
Data center growth has become a flashpoint over whether households end up paying for grid expansion that serves large corporate loads. SB Energy’s commitment to pay the full cost of grid upgrades and new transmission lines, without shifting those costs to Ohio ratepayers, speaks directly to that concern, and the companies argue the new lines will also strengthen regional reliability.
The community package, which includes $40 million from OpenAI on top of SB Energy’s earlier $40 million and $84 million in Codex credits for about 844,000 Ohio students, adds up to more than $160 million by OpenAI’s count. Alongside a union memorandum of understanding and annual public reporting on hiring, water and energy use, it is designed to build local consent for a project whose largest phases will require new permits and reviews over the coming years.
Background
The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant near Piketon, Ohio, was built in the 1950s to enrich uranium for national defense and later for nuclear power fuel. Gaseous diffusion was extremely electricity-intensive, which left the region with substantial grid infrastructure. Enrichment ended in the early 2000s, and the Department of Energy has since overseen decontamination and cleanup, with parts of the site now available for redevelopment.
SB Energy, a SoftBank-backed energy and infrastructure developer, is leading development of the PORTS-Pike campus. OpenAI has been expanding its computing capacity through long-term agreements with developers and hardware partners to support training of frontier AI models and growing demand for products such as ChatGPT and Codex. Source: OpenAI joins PORTS-Pike project, OpenAI’s announcement of an approximately 8 gigawatt capacity agreement with SB Energy, NVIDIA and the U.S. Department of Energy in Pike County, Ohio.Sources