OpenAI signs record Ohio data center lease with Nvidia backing up to $105 billion

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OpenAI signed a 20-year lease with SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy for the 'PORTS-Pike' campus in Ohio, providing roughly 8 gigawatts of IT capacity. Nvidia is backing the project by guaranteeing up to $105 billion in residual value for the first 4.25-gigawatt construction phase, and in return becomes OpenAI's exclusive chip supplier for the first half of the site. The financial structure is notable: Nvidia is not covering OpenAI's rent but rather guaranteeing residual asset value if OpenAI exits. SB Energy would first need to find a replacement tenant and attempt a sale before Nvidia's guarantee is triggered. Nvidia is also investing $1.5 billion directly in SB Energy. If it exercises its option on the remaining 3.75 GW, the combined package could represent roughly $600 billion in compute. Jensen Huang coined a new acronym for this era: 'LPS' — land, power, and shell — which he says has replaced chips as the primary bottleneck. The site sits on a former DOE uranium enrichment facility and draws from a 9.2-gigawatt gas plant. The first 800 megawatts are slated to come online in 2026. The Wall Street Journal reports that nine tech companies now hold around $3 trillion in AI commitments that do not appear on any balance sheet — a figure analysts say makes it nearly impossible to gauge actual debt exposure.