SB Energy, the SoftBank-backed developer, will build, own, and operate the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site in Pike County, Ohio, under a 20-year lease to OpenAI. The project was first reported in an Nvidia corporate news release, with additional detail from an OpenAI announcement, ENR, and Data Center Frontier.

SB Energy is responsible for the campus buildings, on-site generation, and delivery systems. Nvidia is the exclusive AI compute infrastructure provider at PORTS-Pike, with an initial phase backed by credit support for 4.25 GW of IT load and an option for roughly another 3.75 GW. OpenAI is the sole tenant, committed to approximately 8 GW of IT capacity under the long-term lease.

SB Energy is a SoftBank-backed renewable and infrastructure developer. At PORTS-Pike it is acting as the full-stack developer: it will build, own, and operate the campus rather than hand it off, which puts it in a different position than a merchant developer moving assets after delivery. Its equity is anchored in part by Nvidia's $1.5 billion investment, giving the project unusually deep balance-sheet support before a single permit is final.

As of late July 2026, public filings remain early-stage. One Ohio EPA wetlands and streams permit application was filed May 28, 2026. No Ohio EPA air permit, no gas pipeline filing, and no Ohio Power Siting Board transmission case for the main 765-kV line had been published. The gap between the project's announced scale and its current permit posture is significant: 9.2 GW of natural gas generation and a new 765-kV line each carry multi-year review cycles. Contractors and staffing firms tracking this project should treat the December 2026 federal authorization target as the leading indicator for when major procurement and mobilization decisions will cascade.

PORTS-Pike is not a single hiring event. At 10 GW of data center capacity paired with 9.2 GW of on-site generation and a new high-voltage transmission corridor, it is more accurately described as a sustained decade-long construction and commissioning program with a permanent operations tail. Pike County's legacy as a massive federal plant site is a non-obvious labor advantage. Workers and contractors already familiar with high-security, heavily regulated industrial environments and brownfield remediation are concentrated locally in a way that simply does not exist near most greenfield campuses. Union building trades and contractors experienced with utility, pipeline, and power-plant projects serve the broader southern Ohio region well. The competitive pressure comes from distance and competing demand. Columbus is roughly 60 to 80 miles north and Cincinnati about 100 miles west, both running active large-project pipelines for electricians, pipefitters, operators, and steelworkers. Ohio's broader semiconductor fab and advanced manufacturing wave is pulling from the same trades. As PORTS-Pike ramps, sourcing journeymen and foremen regionally will require lead time that staffing firms should be building now, before permit approvals trigger simultaneous mobilizations. For a breakdown of roles, pay bands, and where the talent sits, see our guide to hiring data center talent in Pike County, Ohio. Sources: Nvidia corporate news release, which first announced the project structure; OpenAI announcement; ENR; and Data Center Frontier.