OpenAI has entered into an agreement to secure approximately 8 gigawatts-IT at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio, working with SB Energy, NVIDIA, and the U.S. Department of Energy. We want to develop this project as a partner to Pike County—paying its project-specific energy and infrastructure costs, using water responsibly, creating opportunities for local workers and businesses, and making long-term investments shaped by the community.
The project is expected to create 35,000 construction jobs during its six-year buildout through 2032 and 2,500 long-term operating jobs. We will also invest $40 million in a community grant fund supporting priorities identified by local residents—building on SB Energy’s previously announced $40 million commitment. Separately, we are providing $84 million in Codex credits through ChatGPT, giving every Ohio college student access to the technology.
Pike County helped power America’s industrial growth in the 20th century and now, with this project, it has another opportunity to play a leading role in the next era of American industrialization.
We want it to be a catalyst for jobs, business growth, and investment across Southern Ohio—and to help make this a place where young people can build careers, raise families, and choose to stay.
As we become part of the community, these principles will guide our work:
- The project will pay its own energy and infrastructure costs. SB Energy will pay the full cost of the grid upgrades and new transmission lines needed to serve the data center. Those costs will not be shifted to Ohio or other ratepayers in the region. This investment will also strengthen the regional electricity grid and support more reliable power over time.
- The data center will recirculate water to reduce ongoing demand. The data center will use closed-loop, air-cooled cooling systems that recirculate water rather than relying on cooling towers that continuously consume water for cooling. As a result, it will use significantly less water than historically used by the Portsmouth gaseous diffusion plant. Once the data center cooling system is filled, ongoing water use is expected to be comparable to an office building supporting a similar number of people, including sinks and restrooms, equipment washdown and maintenance, and landscaping. PORTS-Pike is working with the Department of Energy to leverage their existing onsite water system. We will also fund new water infrastructure in partnership with and to the benefit of local communities. Once the site design is finalized, we will publicly report the project’s expected water use. We will also fund new water infrastructure in partnership with and to the benefit of the local municipalities.
- The investment will create tangible benefits for Pike County and Southern Ohio. The PORTS-Pike Technology Data Center is expected to create 35,000 construction jobs during its six-year buildout through 2032, along with 2,500 long-term operating jobs. OpenAI and SB Energy will work to prioritize local workers, contractors, suppliers, trades, and service providers. Building on SB Energy’s existing $40 million community agreement, OpenAI will invest an additional $40 million, and this community investment will be shaped by local residents’ priorities such as schools, public safety, health care, utilities, workforce training, housing, veterans’ services, small businesses, and support for working families. The project is expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local tax revenue over its lifetime. Local and state property tax revenues will primarily support public schools, while other state and local tax revenues will help fund schools, roads, public safety, emergency services, health care, workforce development, and other public priorities.
- We will invest in good jobs and workforce pathways for local residents. PORTS-Pike Campus signed a Memorandum of Understanding with North America’s Building Trades Unions to commit to the project being built. We plan to work with the Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council and all of its affiliated crafts, local schools, colleges, apprenticeship programs, veterans’ organizations, labor partners, and workforce groups to help residents prepare for construction, technical, and operating roles. Working together, we will create good jobs and help build a larger base of skills, businesses, and opportunity that can attract additional employers and support careers across the region for years to come.
- Ohio students will receive access to tools for the next generation of work. OpenAI will make up to $84 million in credits for Codex available to approximately 844,000 eligible Ohio college, community college, and technical school students aged 18 and older during the 2026–2027 academic year. Codex is an OpenAI tool within ChatGPT that helps people build software and complete technical projects. Eligible students will receive $100 in credits through their ChatGPT accounts, giving them hands-on experience using AI to carry out complex tasks, create projects, and build practical skills for careers across engineering, manufacturing, health care, education, entrepreneurship, and the skilled trades. Together, OpenAI’s local investment and Codex credits, along with SB Energy’s community grant, represent more than $160 million in benefits for Pike County and Ohio residents. Students can learn more at chatgpt.com/codex/ohio-college-students/(opens in a new window).
- We will report publicly on our progress. Each year, we will publish a report covering local hiring, community investment, water use, and project-related energy use.
We will continue to meet with residents, local officials, schools, businesses, labor organizations, and community groups to help shape an Ohio Community Compact. The Compact will reflect local priorities and turn these principles into specific, public measures as the project moves forward.
There is significant work ahead, and the full data center will not be built all at once. SB Energy is developing the project across private land and remediated land controlled by the Department of Energy at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. We appreciate the Trump Administration’s leadership in helping advance the redevelopment of this federal site for American AI infrastructure. This gives a site that once supported American industry and national security a new role building infrastructure for the Intelligence Era.
The first 800 megawatts are expected to become available in 2028 largely using existing AEP infrastructure. Further development will require new power plants connected to the grid, including natural gas generation, as well as new transmission lines and associated infrastructure. SB Energy has published additional information about the project at portscampus.com(opens in a new window).
SB Energy will build, own, and operate the data center under a 20-year lease to OpenAI and deliver capacity over time. OpenAI will be the customer and will utilize capacity at the site, which will exclusively host NVIDIA AI compute infrastructure. We are contracting for this capacity based on our projected long-term needs for frontier training and growing demand for our products. OpenAI will begin paying only as completed capacity becomes available for lease and will fund those commitments through revenue and cash flow from the significant growth of our business and capital raised from investors. Separately, NVIDIA will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and will provide credit support for the land, power, and shell buildout associated with the initial 4.25 IT-GW. Development will depend on the necessary infrastructure, permits, environmental reviews, and financing being in place.
NVIDIA and OpenAI are collaborating through design, testing, and commissioning at the data center. The companies will also jointly publish a technical white paper sharing lessons from PORTS-Pike—including how resilient infrastructure design, rigorous data center component qualification, and software-level workload management can support higher compute availability, greater reliability, and longer mean time between interruptions at cluster scale—helping establish the data center as a model for future next gen supercomputer design.
We expect to use this capacity to meet growing demand for advanced AI and maintain our lead as the frontier AI research laboratory in pursuit of our mission.
Data centers like the PORTS-Pike Technology Data Center are part of the physical foundation behind AI. Together with chips, power, and high-speed networks, they allow us to develop more capable systems and make tools like ChatGPT and Codex more reliable, affordable, and available to more people and businesses.
Our mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. The better we build it, the more people can use AI to learn, create, solve problems, start businesses, and do work that was previously out of reach.
Our responsibility is to make sure the communities helping build it share meaningfully in those benefits. We look forward to working with Pike County and the broader Southern Ohio region as it begins the next chapter of its long contribution to American progress.
