OpenAI to lease massive new AI data center in US, backed by Nvidia

ChatGPT-maker OpenAI will lease a massive new data center in the United States for 20 years, backed by a $105 billion financing commitment from Nvidia, according to a regulatory filing published Monday.

The project will be built on the site of a former Cold War-era uranium enrichment plant in Ohio and could eventually reach 8 gigawatts (GW) of capacity, making it the largest single data center for artificial intelligence (AI).

The data center will also run "exclusively" on Nvidia chips.

SoftBank and the data center's owner, a subsidiary called SB Energy, will invest more than $4 billion into local energy infrastructure and "build at least 10 GW of new energy generation" to power the data center.

OpenAI will commit $40 million to "support local priorities." Nvidia will also invest $1.5 billion into SB Energy, though the company preemptively pushed back on critiques about so-called circular financing, which has fueled fears about an AI bubble that will eventually burst.

"OpenAI will pay the lease," Nvidia wrote in a blog post on Monday, adding that the deal was made with "the same discipline we apply to supply-chain management." However, Nvidia's financing guarantee, its largest, marks a shift in scale for a practice that has become common in the sector: despite explosive revenue growth, AI developers still depend on financial backing from their own suppliers to build the giant infrastructure underpinning this technological revolution.

Nvidia previously considered providing a $250 billion backstop, according to the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg in July.

Its shares fell by 5% after those reports, but they're up by more than 19% this year.

"This is going to be a huge site, with enough computing power to help millions of people use AI to do things we can only start to imagine today," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in a statement.

OpenAI expects the project to create 35,000 temporary construction jobs over six years and 2,500 "long-term operating jobs," it said in a blog post.

Promises about jobs and energy investments are a response to growing hostility toward data centers, which need heavy amounts of electricity and water to operate.

More than 70% of Americans oppose building them near their homes, according to a Gallup poll from March, and rising electricity bills, attributed in part to these sites, are fueling debate in the midterm elections.

OpenAI and SB Energy maintain that they will cover the data center's energy and infrastructure costs without passing them on to local residents.

The facility will initially have 4.25 GW of capacity with the possibility of adding another 3.75 GW.