New Albany's booming data center corridor got a national-stage endorsement on Aug. 19, when Nvidia's chief financial officer pointed to Ohio's AI buildout as a key driver of the chipmaker's record growth forecast.

CFO Colette Kress told investors that AI labs Nvidia is financially backing, a group headlined by the 8-gigawatt PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Pike County, should account for "roughly a quarter of our business next year." Nvidia posted $96.2 billion in quarterly revenue, more than doubling its year-ago total, according to Data Center Dynamics.

For New Albany residents, the signal is clear. The same global AI spending wave powering Nvidia's earnings is already reshaping the local landscape. Meta, Amazon Web Services, QTS and Vantage all have active construction in the New Albany corridor, according to a city community development report from August 2025. Meta is expanding its Prometheus AI data center in New Albany into what the Cincinnati Enquirer reported will be the world's first gigawatt-capable facility.

The PORTS-Pike campus sits about 90 miles south of New Albany in Piketon, on the site of a former Cold War uranium enrichment plant. OpenAI announced Monday, Aug. 17 it signed a 20-year lease with SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary, to build the campus. Nvidia said it will invest $1.5 billion in SB Energy and provide credit support for the initial 4.25 gigawatts of capacity.

That credit support carries a contingent cap of $105 billion, but it activates only if OpenAI becomes insolvent or defaults on lease payments, according to Nvidia's SEC filing as reported by TechTimes.

SB Energy spokesperson Ally Copple told the Cincinnati Enquirer the first phase alone will cost $30 billion to $40 billion. That phase, covering 800 megawatts, is expected to come online in 2028. Construction on the full campus is projected to continue through 2032, creating an estimated 35,000 construction jobs and 2,500 permanent positions, according to OpenAI.

Kress said each gigawatt of data center capacity now generates about $60 billion in Nvidia revenue, up from roughly $30 billion five years ago. The company forecasts 70 percent revenue growth for fiscal year 2028.

The broader Ohio buildout keeps accelerating. Companies plan to invest $40 billion more in data centers statewide by 2030, according to the Ohio Consumers' Counsel as reported by Spectrum News 1 on Thursday, Aug. 27. AEP Ohio recently secured $18 million from five data center firms — Meta, QTS, Amazon, SoftBank Energy and Google — to help Ohio households pay electric bills, Data Center Dynamics reported on Monday, Aug. 24.

SB Energy and SoftBank plan to build at least 10 gigawatts of new energy generation and invest $4.2 billion in regional grid infrastructure through a partnership with AEP Ohio. The companies said electricity and infrastructure costs will not be passed on to residents.

Phase 1 construction at PORTS-Pike is scheduled to begin in 2026.