8 Gigawatts, 35,000 Jobs, $160M+ in Benefits: OpenAI's New Ohio AI Campus, PORTS-Pike!

Hi, it's me, Shiichan! I found a really big-scale story today — OpenAI is building a massive AI infrastructure campus in the U.S.!

OpenAI News openai.com

What was announced?

OpenAI News announced a new project called the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, Ohio. Working with SB Energy, NVIDIA, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), OpenAI has entered into an agreement to secure approximately 8 gigawatts-IT (GW-IT) of power capacity. It's a large-scale AI data center project on land that includes the site of the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, once used for uranium enrichment.

Why it matters

Pike County once helped power America's industrial growth and national security through the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant. Now that same site is being redeveloped as an AI infrastructure hub, with the federal government supporting the redevelopment of this site. A place that once supported American industry is now set to support the AI era. Training and running AI models requires enormous amounts of power and infrastructure, and OpenAI signed this large-scale agreement to meet its projected long-term needs.

What changes

Here's what this project is expected to bring to Pike County and Southern Ohio:

• 35,000 construction jobs during the six-year buildout through 2032
• 2,500 long-term operating jobs once the campus is running
• A $40 million community grant fund from OpenAI, on top of SB Energy's existing $40 million commitment
• Up to $84 million in Codex credits, giving roughly 844,000 eligible Ohio college, community college, and technical school students aged 18 and older $100 in credits each through their ChatGPT accounts
• Combined, OpenAI's local investment and Codex credits, plus SB Energy's community grant, add up to more than $160 million in benefits
• Hundreds of millions of dollars in state and local tax revenue over the project's lifetime, funding schools, roads, public safety, and health care

SB Energy has also committed to paying the full cost of the grid upgrades and new transmission lines needed to serve the data center, so those costs won't be shifted to other Ohio ratepayers.

Dive Deep

The announcement includes some solid technical detail too.

• Power: The first 800 megawatts are expected to come online in 2028, largely using existing AEP infrastructure. Further buildout will require new power plants, including natural gas generation, plus new transmission lines
• Deal structure: SB Energy will build, own, and operate the data center, with OpenAI as the customer under a 20-year lease. OpenAI will pay only as completed capacity becomes available
• NVIDIA's investment: 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 IT-GW. The site will exclusively host NVIDIA AI compute infrastructure
• Cooling and water: Instead of water-consuming cooling towers, the data center will use closed-loop, air-cooled systems that recirculate water. Water use is expected to be far lower than the former enrichment plant, and OpenAI plans to publicly report expected water use once the site design is finalized
• Workforce development: PORTS-Pike signed a Memorandum of Understanding with North America's Building Trades Unions, and will work with the Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council and local schools and training programs
• Shared engineering knowledge: NVIDIA and OpenAI are collaborating on design, testing, and commissioning, and plan to jointly publish a technical white paper on resilient infrastructure design and reliability at cluster scale
• OpenAI has also committed to publishing an annual report covering local hiring, community investment, water use, and energy use

Wrap-up

• OpenAI, together with SB Energy, NVIDIA, and the U.S. Department of Energy, announced PORTS-Pike, an approximately 8-gigawatt AI data center campus in Pike County, Ohio
• The project is expected to create 35,000 construction jobs and 2,500 long-term operating jobs, plus more than $160 million in community benefits (grants and Codex credits combined)
• SB Energy will cover the full cost of grid upgrades, so they won't be passed on to local ratepayers
• Cooling will use a water-recirculating design, with water use to be publicly reported each year
• The first 800 megawatts are expected online in 2028, backed by a $1.5 billion NVIDIA investment
• A read worth your time if you're curious how massive AI infrastructure investment ripples through a region's jobs and economy!