Susana Schwartz
Work begins on site of 10 GW 'AI Data Center' campus
Last week, crews reached a milestone in deactivating legacy laboratory facilities at the site of what is projected to be a 10 GW “AI Data Center,” a unique “blueprint” in that it is 100% funded by private investment on federal land.
With SoftBank and its subsidiary SB Energy pledging $70 billion in direct financial commitments, and CEO Masayoshi Son estimating approximately $500 billion long term, the project is being touted by the U.S. Dept. of Energy Secretary Chris Wright as the “world’s largest. SB Energy Rich Hossfeld predicts “there will be more knowledge, more compute here than anywhere in the entire current world capacity. More than ChatGPT, more than Gemini, more will be based here in Ohio.”
In exchange for SoftBank’s investment, the Japanese government has been promised a 15% tariff cap on “most imports” by the Trump administration. The project aims to include 9.2 GW of natural gas generation (by approx. 2037), and $4.2 billion in grid upgrades and investment in new transmission lines for AEP Ohio, which is co-managing the upgrade. There is, of course, skepticism about the predicted size of the project, as 9.2 GW of natural gas generation will demand a massive amount of specialized equipment, and currently GE Vernova, Siemens Energy, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) are facing backlogs big enough that they are advising developers of new gas-fired projects “to plan seven to eight years ahead of turbine procurement.”
To learn more about the particulars, read the RCRTech story here.
Susana Schwartz
Technology Editor
RCRTech
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