OpenAI secures 20-year Ohio data center lease backed by Nvidia

OpenAI has signed a 20-year lease for 4.25 gigawatts of initial AI capacity at an Ohio data center supported by up to $105 billion in guarantees from Nvidia.

Nvidia’s Aug. 17 announcement said OpenAI will use the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, where SB Energy will build, own, and operate the infrastructure under the long-term lease.

The chipmaker will serve as the campus’s exclusive AI compute provider, supplying its DSX AI factory platform. OpenAI’s systems will use Nvidia GPUs, CPUs, and networking equipment, with the first capacity scheduled to become available in phases beginning in 2028.

Built across private and federal land, the campus will occupy the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant and surrounding property in southern Ohio. SB Energy is developing the project with AEP Ohio, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Department of Commerce.

Nvidia has secured the land, power, and building shell required for an initial 4.25 gigawatts of IT load. The company also holds an option for the remaining 3.75 gigawatts, potentially taking the campus to 8 gigawatts of AI capacity.

Nvidia has provided a $105 billion lease guarantee

In an Aug. 17 SEC filing, Nvidia disclosed several residual-value guarantee agreements covering OpenAI’s initial 4.25-gigawatt commitment.

The company’s combined payment obligations under the agreements cannot exceed $105 billion. Each guarantee generally becomes effective when the related lease starts, provided SB Energy satisfies the ready-for-service conditions for the relevant section of the campus.

OpenAI remains responsible for paying the lease. Nvidia would face a payment obligation only if OpenAI became insolvent and defaulted or failed to make the required payments, according to the filing.

Following such an event, Nvidia would generally cover the difference between the lease’s guaranteed minimum value and the amount SB Energy recovered through a replacement tenant or property sale. Nvidia could also assume the lease, ask SB Energy to find another tenant, begin a sale process or allow the lease to end.

Another provision would let Nvidia postpone those remedies for up to one year while paying certain project costs. OpenAI has agreed to reimburse and indemnify the chipmaker for any money it pays to SB Energy under the guarantees.

The guarantee for each section can run until the 20th anniversary of the applicable lease. Nvidia’s obligation could end earlier if OpenAI terminates the lease under its terms, achieves a satisfactory credit rating or meets another termination condition stated in the agreements.

Addressing concerns about circular financing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said OpenAI, rather than the chipmaker, will make the lease payments. If OpenAI does not use the capacity, Huang said the site could be offered to another eligible customer.

“Nvidia compute is versatile, fungible and broadly adopted,” Huang wrote, adding that the capacity could be resold to cloud providers, enterprises, AI laboratories or startups in the company’s customer network.

OpenAI will use Nvidia’s full AI technology stack

At the Ohio site, OpenAI will deploy Nvidia’s DSX platform across the initial 4.25-gigawatt buildout, subject to limited exceptions disclosed in the SEC filing. The platform combines data center facilities, computing hardware, networking, and software into one system.

Huang described land, power, and finished data center space as essential resources for the AI industry, where companies need large power commitments before installing computing equipment.

“We are securing long-lived infrastructure for Nvidia compute so OpenAI can deploy the most productive AI factories,” Huang said.

Alongside its guarantee, Nvidia will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy. The investment will place the chipmaker beside existing investors SoftBank Group and OpenAI while providing capital for SB Energy’s data center projects and local commitments.

SB Energy and SoftBank plan to build at least 10 gigawatts of new electricity generation to support 8 gigawatts of IT capacity. The companies will also invest at least $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure through an agreement with AEP Ohio, Nvidia said.

According to the announcement, the power and grid arrangements are designed to prevent existing Ohio electricity customers from carrying the project’s infrastructure costs. SB Energy co-CEO Rich Hossfeld said the group would build the site while “protecting ratepayers” and investing in southern Ohio.

The project is expected to support about 35,000 construction jobs through 2032 and create roughly 2,500 permanent operating positions, Reuters reported. OpenAI and SB Energy have also established an $80 million community benefits fund after OpenAI added $40 million to SB Energy’s original commitment.

Funding from the program is intended for affordable energy, workforce training, employment programs, and local economic development. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company wants Pike County residents to benefit through jobs, business opportunities, and community investment.

AI demand has increased competition for power and land

OpenAI’s lease adds to a series of large infrastructure commitments as AI companies secure electricity, grid connections and data center sites. Advanced computing projects often require years of preparation because utilities must add generation and transmission capacity before servers can begin operating.

For crypto investors, the same demand has increased interest in Bitcoin miners that already control powered land and grid connections. As crypto.news reported in May, former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner’s fund held positions in IREN, Core Scientific, Riot Platforms, CleanSpark, Bitfarms, Bitdeer, and Hive Digital as part of a power-and-compute investment strategy.

The fund’s SEC filing showed $13.67 billion in disclosed equity exposure at the end of the first quarter. Several miners have been converting existing sites or planned capacity into high-performance computing facilities because the infrastructure can serve AI customers as well as proof-of-work networks.

OpenAI has also diversified the cloud services used to distribute its models. In April, the company expanded its AWS access after revising its relationship with Microsoft, allowing OpenAI models and its Codex agent to become available through Amazon Bedrock.

While securing additional computing capacity, OpenAI has continued preparing for a possible public listing. Reports in June said executives were considering a potential 2027 IPO rather than accepting a lower valuation in 2026, while SoftBank shares fell 12.5% after the reports emerged.

Polymarket traders currently assign about a 20% probability to OpenAI completing an IPO by the end of 2026. Prediction-market prices can change as traders enter or leave positions and do not represent an announcement from the company.

Nvidia said the full guarantee agreements will be filed as an exhibit to its Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter that ended July 26, 2026.