Bryn Talkington, managing partner at Requisite Capital Management, noted the circular nature of the investment structure to CNBC. “Nvidia invests $100 billion in OpenAI, which then OpenAI turns back and gives it back to Nvidia,” Talkington told CNBC. “I feel like this is going to be very virtuous for Jensen.”
Racing for nuclear power
In an August earnings call, Huang told investors that building one gigawatt of data center capacity costs between $50 billion and $60 billion, with about $35 billion going toward Nvidia chips and systems. At that rate, the 10 gigawatt project could require total investment exceeding $500 billion.
While the companies did not specify power sources in their announcement, the massive energy requirements have driven other tech giants to nuclear partnerships for similar projects. In September 2024, Microsoft signed a 20-year agreement to restart a Three Mile Island reactor for 835 megawatts, while in May of this year, Amazon Web Services purchased a data center next to Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna nuclear plant with plans to use up to 960 megawatts.
Other massive AI infrastructure projects are emerging across the US. In July, officials in Cheyenne, Wyoming, announced plans for an AI data center that would eventually scale to 10 gigawatts—consuming more electricity than all homes in the state combined, even in its earliest 1.8 gigawatt phase. Whether it’s connected to OpenAI’s plans remains unclear.
Altman’s ambition for mega-sized datacenter deals now stretches back over a year. In September of last year, Constellation Energy CEO Joe Dominguez told Bloomberg he had heard Altman wanted five to seven data centers of 5 gigawatts each. Alex de Vries of Digiconomist told Fortune that seven 5-gigawatt units would have “twice the power consumption of New York State combined.”
The planned infrastructure buildout would significantly increase global energy consumption, which also raises environmental concerns. The International Energy Agency estimates that global data centers already consumed roughly 1.5 percent of global electricity in 2024. OpenAI’s project also faces practical constraints. Existing power grid connections represent bottlenecks in power-constrained markets, with utilities struggling to keep pace with rapid AI expansion that could push global data center electricity demand to 945 terawatt hours by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.
The companies said they expect to finalize details in the coming weeks. Huang told CNBC the $100 billion investment comes on top of all Nvidia’s existing commitments and was not included in the company’s recent financial forecasts to investors.