OpenAI plans to establish one of the largest AI data centers in the United States in Ohio. The facility will be built on the site of a former uranium enrichment plant dating back to the Cold War. China Global Television Network (CGTN) reports.
The facility is expected to run exclusively on Nvidia chips. Nvidia will also provide $105 billion in financing, making it one of the largest financial guarantees of its kind in the industry.
The data center will initially have a capacity of 4.25 GW. The plan is to add another 3.75 GW, bringing the total to 8 GW. For comparison, the entire city of San Francisco consumed just over 5 GW of power in 2024.
The project is also expected to create a significant number of jobs. OpenAI estimates that around 35,000 temporary construction jobs will be created during the six-year development phase, along with 2,500 permanent positions once the facility is operational.
Additional investment will go toward the energy infrastructure. SoftBank and SB Energy plan to invest more than $4 billion in local infrastructure and build at least 10 GW of new power generation capacity.
“This is going to be a huge site, with enough computing power to help millions of people use AI to do things we can only start to imagine today,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said.
The scale of the project is already raising questions about the impact of data centers on power grids and water resources. However, the companies say the costs of electricity and infrastructure will not be passed on to local residents.
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