Nvidia’s recent earnings report was full of big numbers but one of the most eye-opening was that future gigawatt-scale data centers will cost around $50 billion to build. OpenAI looks ready to take on that huge spending, planning one such facility in India alongside multiple sites in the U.S. and elsewhere, according to a Bloomberg report.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told analysts that a single gigawatt data center would require around $35 billion in spending on his company’s hardware—plus $15 billion on additional components—and he expected future “AI super-factories” would require multiple gigawatts of power.
That will need some very deep-pocketed clients but ChatGPT-developer OpenAI is stepping up. The company is looking for local partners to set up a data center in India with at least a one-gigawatt capacity, Bloomberg reported Monday, citing unidentified sources.
If Nvidia’s numbers are correct, then OpenAI is planning hundreds of billions worth of spending.
OpenAI recently announced an agreement with Oracle to develop 4.5 gigawatts of data-center capacity in the U.S., and previously announced plans for a one-gigawatt cluster in Abu Dhabi. All that spending is likely to come under the umbrella of Project Stargate, a$500 billion planfor AI infrastructure investment. According to Goldman Sachs, the entire data-center capacity in North America stood at 22 gigawatts at the end of 2024.
OpenAI hasn’t provided details about how Project Stargate will be funded. It didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment early on Monday.
Such commitments are good news for Nvidia, which has forecast $3 trillion to $4 trillion in annual AI infrastructure spending by 2030.
“We had previously expected 2025 to represent a peak year in the AI cycle due to several factors. Based on the progress made by the AI models over the last 6 months, their expanded capabilities and rapid adoption, we now believe demand growth for inference will sustain for the foreseeable future, which should overwhelm these trends,” wrote D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria in a research note.
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