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Planned 10-gigawatt Softbank data center in Ohio might be the largest in the world — will require a $33 billion natural gas plant, equivalent to nine nuclear reactors
SoftBank Group is prepping to build a new AI data center in Ohio that could reach 10 GW of power demand and cost $30 billion to $40 billion for the computing infrastructure and a further $33 billion for a natural gas power plant, reports Bloomberg. When completed, the new site could be one of the largest AI data centers ever built. Furthermore, it will be powered by one of the world’s largest fleets of gas turbines, equivalent to the energy supply of nine nuclear reactors.
SoftBank yet has to disclose which hardware will power the data center, though it looks like this one will feature multiple generations of AI hardware, as the first gas turbines will be installed within a year, meaning that the first phase of the data center will run Nvidia’s Rubin and/or AMD’s Instinct MI455X-class accelerators. Meanwhile, the full deployment is expected by the end of the decade, which means that the facility will also use Nvidia’s Feynman or post-Feynman hardware and/or AMD’s MI600 or even MI700-series, though we are speculating.
The proposed data center will be located in a 3,700-acre complex in Piketon, which previously produced weapons-grade uranium during the Cold War and later supported civilian nuclear fuel production before shutting down in 2001. To power the data center, SoftBank-backed SB Energy is deploying a fleet of gas turbines capable of generating approximately 9.2 GW, with an additional 800 MW of capacity also planned, according to the report. These turbines will not be concentrated at a single site, but distributed across the region. The initial turbines will be installed within a year, and full deployment is expected by the end of the decade. In parallel, American Electric Power’s local utility unit will provide transmission and grid infrastructure upgrades worth $4.2 billion, the report claims.
It is noteworthy that the 10 GW requirement represents a substantial share of Ohio’s total generation capacity, which totaled around 30 GW in 2024.
Interestingly, the project worth over $66 billion does not seem to be a part of the well-known Stargate project (co-backed by CityBank), but the initiative is a part of a $550 billion U.S.–Japan investment program recently established under a bilateral agreement that also included reductions in U.S. auto tariffs and other duties. As an initial step, the two countries last month unveiled three projects in the U.S. that include an oil export terminal, a natural gas-fired power plant, and a synthetic diamond production facility. The total value of these projects is $36 billion.
Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
My main takeaway from that article is that the people of OH are going to be footing a $4.2B for utility upgrades nobody asked for, and only a single company will take advantage of.
My main takeaway from that article is that the people of OH are going to be footing a $4.2B for utility upgrades nobody asked for, and only a single company will take advantage of.
It should have been included in this article, but it sounds like it will not be on the rate payers: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aep-ohio-partners-to-bring-4-2b-in-new-electric-infrastructure-in-appalachian-ohio-without-raising-customer-rates-302719945.html
I assume rates will still go up, but it won't be due to the upgrades.
10GW, when AFAIK there's little or no fully installed and lit up GW AI datacenters yet and powered by gas, I'm sorry but this is getting to be certifiably insane. This is based on what justification? OpenAI and Anthropic certainly aren't profitable, coreweave is being propped up, Microsoft apparently stopped reporting AI revenue in the first quarter of 2025. Where's the actual demand?
