10-GW Ohio AI data center: OpenAI seeks Nvidia-backed lease
OpenAI is in talks to lease a 10-GW Ohio AI data center campus on federal land, backed by Nvidia funding, according to The Information. The proposed site would be the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Pike County, a redevelopment project tied to a US Department of Energy (DOE) partnership with SoftBank’s SB Energy.
If the agreement is finalized, the 10-GW Ohio AI data center would be among the largest single-site compute commitments for AI ever—far bigger than OpenAI’s current “Stargate” footprint. Stargate is already planned at nearly 7 GW across seven US locations, but the Ohio campus alone would exceed the combined capacity of those sites. For scale, Northern Virginia held about 5 GW of data center capacity in 2025.
SB Energy plans to build 10 GW of new power generation at the Portsmouth site, including at least 9.2 GW from natural gas, plus about $4.2 billion in new transmission infrastructure with AEP Ohio. The DOE also notes funding for accelerated environmental cleanup at the former uranium enrichment facility.
Nvidia’s role goes beyond chips. Nvidia and OpenAI previously signed a letter of intent for at least 10 GW of Nvidia systems, with Nvidia committing up to $100 billion as capacity comes online. The first 1 GW was targeted for the second half of 2026 via Nvidia’s “Vera Rubin” platform.
Market context: utilities are already adjusting for surging AI-driven electricity demand. Dominion Energy increased its 5-year capex outlook and reported contracted data-center power capacity up sharply.
Next steps: lease terms and how fast OpenAI can secure power, permits, and capital for the full 10-GW Ohio AI data center load are still unclear.
Neutral
The announcement is highly relevant to AI computing demand and power-grid planning, but it has limited direct linkage to crypto assets or on-chain liquidity. While massive data-center capex can boost broad tech sentiment, crypto trading usually reacts more to crypto-specific catalysts (ETF flows, regulation, stablecoin supply, exchange inflows/outflows) than to non-crypto infrastructure news.
Short term: traders may see a mild “tech/AI optimism” narrative, but without a clear path to crypto revenue, token demand, or measurable market structure changes, the impact is likely muted.
Long term: if projects like OpenAI’s Stargate expansion and the 10-GW Ohio AI data center truly accelerate AI deployment, that can indirectly support infrastructure-heavy equities and AI-related ecosystems. Over time, this can reinforce risk-on behavior in the wider markets, which sometimes spills into crypto during bull phases—but the causal channel is indirect.
Historically, similar large-scale AI infrastructure headlines have tended to move traditional tech narratives more than crypto prices, unless they coincide with crypto-specific drivers (e.g., major AI-crypto partnerships, GPU/compute tokenization, or substantial changes in stablecoin rails). Therefore, the expected effect on crypto market stability is assessed as neutral.