OpenAI is in advanced negotiations to lease a planned 10-gigawatt artificial intelligence campus on federal land in southern Ohio, according to a report published June 9 by The Information. The site sits at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Pike County, near Piketon. SB Energy, a SoftBank unit, would develop the facility. Nvidia is expected to supply the chips and guarantee both OpenAI’s lease and SB Energy’s financing. OpenAI and Nvidia did not immediately comment, and Reuters said it could not verify the report.
Under the proposed terms, OpenAI would control the computing equipment through a 20-year lease and begin payments once the site starts operating. The first phase is expected in 2028. The Information put the total build cost at a minimum of $500 billion if fully developed, based on current prices for chips, power, labor and materials. That figure would rank the campus among the largest single-site commitments to AI computing ever made. At 10 gigawatts, it would roughly match the combined electricity demand of New York City (about 5.5 GW), Los Angeles (about 3 GW) and South Carolina (about 1 GW).
The plan builds on a March 2026 Department of Energy partnership with SoftBank and SB Energy to redevelop the Portsmouth site. Under that agreement, SB Energy committed to building 10 gigawatts of new power generation, including at least 9.2 gigawatts fueled by natural gas. The campus would also extend a September 2025 letter of intent in which Nvidia agreed to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of its systems for OpenAI and to invest up to $100 billion as capacity comes online. A single 10-gigawatt site would exceed the combined capacity planned across OpenAI’s seven existing Stargate locations.
Cost estimates diverge. OpenAI’s roughly 1.2-gigawatt Abilene, Texas campus, developed by Crusoe and Blue Owl, carries about $15 billion in financing. Scaling that intensity to 10 gigawatts implies a figure closer to $60-100 billion, well below the $500 billion the reported talks describe. The final number will depend on deployment pace, power infrastructure and the cost of next-generation Nvidia processors.
Why It Counts
- The deal would deepen OpenAI’s shift away from renting capacity through Microsoft toward dedicated, long-term infrastructure.
- Nvidia’s guarantee turns the chipmaker from a supplier into a financial backstop. One analyst characterized the change as moving from a vendor relationship into a sponsor-and-tenant one.
- Enterprises standardizing on OpenAI would tie themselves to a single chain spanning silicon, power and capital.
- Construction could employ thousands of workers, with later roles in facility operations, network engineering and cybersecurity.
Competitive Landscape
The arrangement feeds a wider debate over circular financing. Nvidia has committed more than $40 billion to AI equity deals in early 2026, including $30 billion in OpenAI. Critics, including Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon, warn that vendors funding their own customers can inflate apparent demand. OpenAI is reportedly on track to lose about $14 billion in 2026. Rivals are moving in parallel: Apollo and Blackstone are financing a $35 billion AI capacity expansion for Anthropic using Broadcom chips. OpenAI paused its Stargate UK project earlier this year, citing regulatory hurdles and high energy costs. Analysts also caution that a 10-gigawatt site could take a decade to fully build.
