OpenAI joins PORTS-Pike project

OpenAI has entered into an agreement to secure approximately 8 gigawatts-IT (GW-IT) of capacity at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio. This partnership with SB Energy, NVIDIA, and the U.S. Department of Energy aims to build a massive AI infrastructure project to support the long-term training needs of frontier models and the increasing demand for OpenAI's products.

Infrastructure and Technical Specifications

The PORTS-Pike project will exclusively host NVIDIA AI compute infrastructure. The data center will be developed by SB Energy, which will build, own, and operate the facility under a 20-year lease to OpenAI.

Power and Deployment Timeline

  • Capacity: The project targets approximately 8 GW-IT of total capacity.
  • Phased Rollout: The first 800 megawatts (MW) are expected to be available by 2028, utilizing existing AEP infrastructure.
  • Power Sources: Further expansion beyond the initial 800 MW will require new transmission lines and new power plants, including natural gas generation.
  • Financial Structure: NVIDIA is investing $1.5 billion in SB Energy and providing credit support for the land, power, and shell buildout of the initial 4.25 GW-IT.

Cooling and Environmental Impact

To reduce ongoing water demand, the data center will employ closed-loop, air-cooled cooling systems that recirculate water. OpenAI states that once the cooling system is filled, ongoing water use will be comparable to an office building supporting a similar number of people. The project is leveraging existing onsite water systems from the Department of Energy and will fund new water infrastructure for local municipalities.

Technical Collaboration and Research

OpenAI and NVIDIA are collaborating on the design, testing, and commissioning of the data center. The two companies intend to jointly publish a technical white paper detailing lessons learned from the project. This research will focus on how resilient infrastructure design, software-level workload management, and rigorous component qualification can improve compute availability, reliability, and mean time between interruptions (MTBI) at cluster scale.

Economic and Community Impact

The project is expected to generate significant economic benefits for Pike County and Southern Ohio through jobs, grants, and educational access.

Employment and Revenue

  • Job Creation: The buildout through 2032 is expected to create 35,000 construction jobs and 2,500 long-term operating jobs.
  • Tax Revenue: The project is expected to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local tax revenue, primarily supporting public schools, roads, and public safety.

Community Investment

  • Grant Funds: OpenAI is investing $40 million into a community grant fund, supplementing a previous $40 million commitment from SB Energy.
  • Workforce Development: A Memorandum of Understanding has been signed with North America’s Building Trades Unions to prioritize local workers and contractors.

Educational Access

OpenAI is providing $84 million in Codex credits through ChatGPT to approximately 844,000 eligible Ohio college, community college, and technical school students (aged 18+) during the 2026‧2027 academic year. Each eligible student will receive $100 in credits to use Codex, a tool within ChatGPT designed to help build software and complete technical projects.

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