Nvidia to invest $1.5B in SoftBank-linked data center developer for OpenAI project

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

The arrangement reinforces how closely AI model growth is tied to access to chips, power and large-scale data center capacity. For readers tracking AI infrastructure, the takeaway is clear: compute supply is becoming a strategic asset, not just a procurement line item.

Nvidia will also provide up to $105 billion in credit to help build the facility, according to documents the company filed with the SEC. The data center could scale from an initial 4.25 gigawatts to 8 gigawatts in size.

Those figures show the project is not only about GPU supply. It also points to the immense financing and energy demands behind next-generation AI systems.

SB Energy’s existing investors include SoftBank and OpenAI. TechCrunch also notes that SoftBank previously held $5.8 billion worth of Nvidia stock, which it sold in November to help fund other AI investments.

That context matters because the same companies shaping AI software and investment strategy are also becoming deeply involved in the physical infrastructure needed to run it. The deal adds another layer to the intertwined AI capital, chip and data center ecosystem.

SB Energy will build a 9.2-gigawatt natural gas power plant on land owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. The site previously enriched uranium for the U.S. nuclear arsenal and U.S. Navy submarines.

The power plant is expected to cost $33 billion, while natural gas power plant costs have risen 66% in the last two years, according to BloombergNEF as cited by TechCrunch. By the time the plant and others are completed, they could be competing with export markets for natural gas, a dynamic that could triple prices in some parts of the country.