SoftBank Invests $3B to Upgrade Ohio Factory for OpenAI

According to reports, SoftBank plans to invest up to $3 billion to revamp an electric vehicle factory in Lordstown, Ohio. The upgraded facility will manufacture equipment for OpenAI's upcoming data centers.

The factory is expected to supply equipment for data centers in Milam County, Texas, and other locations across the U.S. The Japanese conglomerate is heavily investing in this startup at the heart of the generative AI boom.

To support its large-scale AI strategy with OpenAI, SoftBank sold its $5.8 billion stake in NVIDIA. Earlier this August, SoftBank acquired the Lordstown facility for $375 million.

In September, OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank announced a plan to build five AI data centers in the U.S. as part of the $500 billion "Stargate Project," aimed at creating an advanced nationwide AI network.

This investment is part of a broader joint initiative announced at the White House in January, where SoftBank pledged a total of $18 billion. The Ohio factory is set to produce modular data center units—preassembled, mobile units designed for faster deployment and scalable on-site capacity. The facility will also include a small operational data center as a demonstration model.

Production of these modular data center units is expected to begin in early 2026.

In October, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman outlined the company's goal to build 30 gigawatts of computing capacity, with an estimated cost of $1.4 trillion, and plans to add roughly 1 gigawatt per week. Currently, the cost per gigawatt exceeds $40 billion.

Unlike competitors such as Meta and Google, OpenAI lacks advertising or cloud service revenue to offset the construction costs of these data centers.