Nvidia investing $1.5B in SoftBank data center developer behind OpenAI project

Nvidia said Monday it will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy, the data center and power developer tied to SoftBank and OpenAI. The deal makes Nvidia the sole supplier of compute infrastructure at OpenAI’s Ports-Pike data center near Cincinnati, Ohio.

Nvidia is also promising up to $105 billion in credit to help build the facility. According to documents filed with the SEC, the site could grow from an initial 4.25 gigawatts to 8 gigawatts. That is a staggering amount of power for a single project, and it tells you how far the AI buildout has pushed beyond ordinary data center planning.

SB Energy’s backers already include SoftBank and OpenAI. SoftBank had owned $5.8 billion of Nvidia stock before selling it in November to help pay for other AI bets. Now the money is moving in the opposite direction, with Nvidia stepping deeper into the infrastructure side of the same ecosystem.

The Ohio project sits on land owned by the U.S. Department of Energy, on a site that once enriched uranium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal and U.S. Navy submarines. SB Energy plans a 9.2 gigawatt natural gas power plant there, with an expected cost of $33 billion. BloombergNEF has said natural gas power plant costs have risen 66% over the last two years, and the company notes that new plants could end up competing with export markets for gas, a mix that may push prices higher in some parts of the country.