Nvidia will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy as part of an agreement tied to the PORTS-Pike data center project near Cincinnati, Ohio. The arrangement will make Nvidia the exclusive supplier of AI compute infrastructure at the site, which is expected to begin with 4.25 gigawatts of capacity and could eventually reach 8 gigawatts.
Nvidia announced the agreement on Monday and said it will support roughly 4 gigawatts of infrastructure at PORTS-Pike over a 20-year term. According to an SEC filing, Nvidia’s aggregate payment obligations under the initial agreements are capped at $105 billion and will take effect in stages as portions of the facility become operational between 2028 and 2030.
SB Energy’s existing investors include SoftBank and OpenAI. SoftBank previously owned about $5.8 billion of Nvidia stock but sold its entire stake in November 2025 to help finance other artificial intelligence investments.
PORTS-Pike Will Include Large-Scale Power Generation
SB Energy plans to develop a 9.2-gigawatt natural gas power plant at the site, which is on land owned by the U.S. Department of Energy. The location was previously used to enrich uranium for the U.S. nuclear weapons program and U.S. Navy submarines.
The power plant is expected to cost about $33 billion. BloombergNEF data cited in the supplied article showed that costs for building natural gas power plants had risen 66% over the previous two years.
Nvidia said its financial support is limited to defined portions of lease and power payments, along with a specified residual-value commitment. The company said the guarantee does not cover the full cost of the site or all obligations of the tenant.
Nvidia Secures Long-Term Access to AI Infrastructure
The agreement gives Nvidia a site where its compute systems will be deployed exclusively as the PORTS-Pike campus comes online. Nvidia said access to land, power and supporting infrastructure has become a constraint on large AI data center development, leading it to secure sites that can support multiple generations of its computing hardware.
The project is also being developed as U.S. natural gas demand rises from data centers and export markets. Forecasts cited in the supplied article suggest the combination could push natural gas prices in some parts of the country to as much as three times current levels once projects now under development begin operating.
Featured image credits: Roboflow Universe
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