Business Operations

NVIDIA-Backed Project to Create 35,000 Construction Jobs

By NAM NewsroomAugust 26, 2026

NVIDIA will provide up to $105 billion in financing for a new artificial intelligence data center in Ohio, which will be leased to OpenAI, the chipmaker said on Monday (CNBC).

What’s going on: “The credit will support an initial 4.25 gigawatts of computing capacity with the option for an additional 3.75 gigawatts. Nvidia will provide the compute, with capacity expected to come online in phases in 2028.”

  • Via a 20-year lease to OpenAI, SB Energy will construct, own and operate the center at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus, the site of a former uranium enrichment plant in Pike County.

Why it’s important: “Frontier AI labs [like OpenAI] have extraordinary demand for training and inference compute, but many are growing faster than their balance sheets and long-term credit profiles can support,” NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang wrote on his blog.

  • The deal will allow OpenAI to “deploy the most productive AI factories that can be upgraded repeatedly with each new generation delivering more intelligence and better economics,” he added in a company press release.
  • The center will give OpenAI expanded access to the chips and compute power that undergirds the AI architecture.

A job creator: The new center will also support 35,000 construction jobs through 2032, as well as 2,500 permanent positions, NVIDIA said.

What else it entails: “As part of the Ohio deal, SB Energy and SoftBank will build power sources supporting 10 gigawatts of energy and invest at least $4.2 billion into regional grid infrastructure. Nvidia will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy,” according to CNBC.