Nvidia is negotiating to help finance OpenAI's 20-year lease on a Pike County, Ohio data center campus whose construction costs are projected to exceed $500 billion. The chipmaker would move past supplying GPUs and share the capital risk of the site itself. First-phase capacity is slated for 2028.
Nvidia is in talks to financially support OpenAI's 20-year lease of a data center campus in Pike County, Ohio, a project with construction costs projected to exceed $500 billion. The campus belongs to OpenAI's Stargate initiative and would deliver 10 gigawatts of total capacity once fully built out. Its first phase alone targets 800 megawatts, with completion slated for 2028.
A gas-fired AI factory in rural Ohio
Designers cast the campus as a vertically integrated AI factory, pairing it with 9.2 gigawatts of on-site natural gas power generation. The build involves SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary, and draws assistance from the US Department of Energy. The project is being described as one of the largest single integration efforts in AI infrastructure history.
But Nvidia's role here goes beyond shipping GPUs to fill the racks. The company is being asked to put real capital behind the lease itself, sharing the financial risk of a facility that will not be fully operational for years.
Nvidia's $100 billion commitment takes concrete form
Those talks build on a partnership announced in September 2025, when Nvidia committed up to $100 billion to support the deployment of at least 10 gigawatts of hardware configurations for AI infrastructure. The Ohio deal appears to be a concrete manifestation of that broader commitment.
Chip suppliers move up the capital stack
The financing structure is worth watching. If chip manufacturers routinely start backing infrastructure leases, it could reshape how capital flows through the technology sector.
Timing sets the other constraint. The 2028 date for the first phase means investors have roughly two years before any of this capacity comes online.
Between now and then, the project must navigate permitting, construction, power interconnection, and whatever regulatory scrutiny a $500 billion energy-intensive facility attracts in rural Appalachia.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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