Nvidia is participating in talks to back OpenAI with up to $250 billion in financing to help the AI developer lease a 10GW data centre, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The deal would provide OpenAI with guarantees to lease the Ohio site, which would be its first major US data centre campus outside of its Stargate project in Texas.
Citing people close to the deal, the WSJ added that Nvidia is also seeking to provide OpenAI with up to $350 billion in further financing to purchase the chips needed for on-site power AI training and inference operations.
The project, PORTS Technology Campus site, was announced by the US Department of Energy in March as a joint project with the power generator AEP Ohio and SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy.
It will be constructed on the site of a decommissioned Uranium enrichment plant in southern Ohio. When finished, it is expected to host a 10GW data centre co-located to 10GW of power generation, of which 9.2GW is expected to come in the form of a newly built natural gas power plant.
The sources added that the companies expect the site’s first phase, requiring 800MW of power, to complete in 2028.
Since March, reports from publications including Data Centre Dynamics have suggested that OpenAI is looking to lease the entire data centre.
SoftBank and OpenAI partnered with SB Energy in January, jointly investing $1 billion into the firm. The pair have been close partners for years, with SoftBank having committed to investing $40 billion in OpenAI in March 2025.
In March, SoftBank said it will invest a further $30 billion in OpenAI, in possible breach of its own borrowing limits.
OpenAI has a public goal to secure 10GW of AI infrastructure by 2029, a capacity it says is necessary to meet demand and “bring the benefits of AI to everyone”. In April, it announced it has now exceeded this target, without specifying the final figure nor if the Ohio site factored into that calculation.
