SoftBank Group is advancing its plan to build a massive AI data center in Ohio, United States, attracting significant interest from leading technology firms. Reports indicate that Alphabet and Microsoft are in discussions to occupy space in the facility, while NVIDIA, Meta Platforms, Inc., and OpenAI have also shown strong interest in securing critical computing capacity at the site.
The project, located at the Portsmouth site, is unprecedented in scale. Once completed, it is expected to have a total power capacity of 10 gigawatts, with overall investment potentially reaching $500 billion. This would make it one of the world's largest AI data centers, surpassing the combined capacity of all existing AI facilities operated by major tech companies such as Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft.
To ensure a stable energy supply, the project includes plans for a natural gas power generation facility with an investment of over $33 billion and a total installed capacity of 9.2 gigawatts. The power plant is expected to be operational by the end of the decade.
The investment follows a shared model. SoftBank is primarily responsible for financing the construction of the data center buildings and power infrastructure, accounting for approximately $200 billion of the total investment. Meanwhile, tenant companies will cover the costs of servers and AI chips, which represent about 60% to 70% of the total investment, or roughly $300 billion. SoftBank has already initiated preliminary bidding processes as of April.
To accelerate the project’s development, SoftBank has formed the "Portsmouth Alliance," a consortium of 21 Japanese and U.S. companies, including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Mizuho Financial Group, Goldman Sachs, Hitachi, and Toshiba.
For major technology companies, securing large-scale, stable, and centralized computing capacity has become as critical as advancing AI technology itself, given the explosive growth in AI workloads. This explains why firms like Alphabet, Microsoft, and NVIDIA are competing to secure space in what is poised to become the world's largest AI computing complex.
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