Nvidia committed $1.5 billion to SB Energy on Monday, locking itself in as the exclusive compute supplier for OpenAI's Ports-Pike data center outside Cincinnati and pledging up to $105 billion in credit to build a campus that could draw 8 gigawatts.
The power plant comes first
The site, owned by the Department of Energy and once used to enrich uranium for the nuclear arsenal and Navy submarines, will host a 9.2-gigawatt natural gas plant priced at $33 billion. BloombergNEF estimates gas-plant costs have climbed 66 percent in two years, a figure that explains the steep budget. The initial phase targets 4.25 gigawatts of data-center capacity, with a path to double that.
SoftBank's round trip
SoftBank and OpenAI already back SB Energy. SoftBank sold $5.8 billion of Nvidia shares last November to fund other AI bets, only to watch its portfolio company take Nvidia money and Nvidia chips months later. The transaction makes Nvidia both investor and sole vendor, a circular arrangement that consolidates control over the project's compute budget.
The credit facility is the real story
The $105 billion credit commitment, disclosed in an SEC filing, dwarfs the equity stake and effectively makes Nvidia the project's banker. A chip designer is now underwriting the power infrastructure required to run its own processors, a vertical integration that would have looked absurd five years ago.
Gas competition looms
When this plant and others come online, they will bid for gas against export terminals, a dynamic that could triple prices in some U.S. regions. The investment secures Nvidia's hardware franchise, but it also ties the company to a fuel market that is about to get a lot more expensive.