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 grow to have 8 gigawatts 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.” 

Additionally, Nvidia will 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, and continued 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,…