SoftBank Plans 10GW AI Datacenter on Former US Nuclear Weapons Site in Ohio

SoftBank's SB Energy will build a 10-gigawatt datacenter campus on the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant — a Cold War-era uranium enrichment facility in Piketon, Ohio — paired with 10 GW of new power generation.

The Project

• Site: Former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant (uranium enrichment for weapons program)
• Datacenter capacity: 10 GW
• New power generation: 10 GW (at least 9.2 GW gas-fired)
• Grid investment: $4.2 billion transmission upgrade with AEP Ohio
• Power online: Expected by 2029

The Partners

Portsmouth Consortium

• Japanese: Hitachi, Mitsubishi Electric, Toshiba, TDK, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking
• US: Bechtel, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan

Site Neighbors

The same site is also being used by:

• Oklo + Centrus: Uranium processing facility
• Meta: Nuclear power campus targeting up to 1.2 GW baseload

Government Support

• Aligned with Trump's Ratepayer Protection Pledge
• Energy Secretary Chris Wright: Federal land used to "ensure the country wins the AI race"
• SB Energy committed to funding accelerated cleanup of the Portsmouth site
• AEP claims the grid upgrade will lower utility bills for local homes

Masayoshi Son

"AI will transform every industry, and the PORTS Technology Campus will help deliver the next-generation infrastructure needed to unlock those breakthroughs."

Source: The Register