Behind OpenAI and Nvidia’s Landmark 10GW AI Data Centre Deal
OpenAI and Nvidia have announced a strategic partnership to deploy at least 10GW of Nvidia systems dedicated to AI data centres. The deal is designed to power OpenAI’s next generation of AI models and accelerate progress toward superintelligence.
To support the buildout of facilities and power capacity, Nvidia plans to invest up to US$100bn in OpenAI progressively as each gigawatt comes online. The first phase is scheduled for the second half of 2026 on Nvidia’s Vera Rubin platform.
Scaling infrastructure for AI
Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of Nvidia, says the collaboration builds on a long history of cooperation between the two companies.
“Nvidia and OpenAI have pushed each other for a decade, from the first DGX supercomputer to the breakthrough of ChatGPT,” he says. “This investment and infrastructure partnership mark the next leap forward – deploying 10GW to power the next era of intelligence.”
“This is the biggest AI infrastructure project in history,” adds Jensen, speaking to CNBC. “This partnership is about building an AI infrastructure that enables AI to go from the labs into the world.”
Sam Altman, Cofounder and CEO of OpenAI, stresses the central role of compute in driving AI progress.
“There’s no partner but Nvidia that can do this at this kind of scale, at this kind of speed,” says Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, to CNBC. “Building this infrastructure is critical to everything we want to do. This is the fuel that we need to drive improvement, drive better models, drive revenue, drive everything.”
“Everything starts with compute,” Sam explains. “Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future, and we will utilise what we’re building with Nvidia to both create new AI breakthroughs and empower people and businesses with them at scale.”
Greg Brockman, Cofounder and President of OpenAI, echoes this sentiment.
“We’ve been working closely with Nvidia since the early days of OpenAI,” he says. “We’ve utilised their platform to create AI systems that hundreds of millions of people use every day. We’re excited to deploy 10GW of compute with Nvidia to push back the frontier of intelligence and scale the benefits of this technology to everyone.”
Data centres at unprecedented scale
The deployment of 10GW of GPU-powered systems represents one of the largest AI infrastructure projects to date. These facilities, which will host millions of GPUs, are being designed to deliver the compute power required for OpenAI’s future models and AI-driven services.
As part of the partnership, OpenAI has selected Nvidia as its preferred strategic compute and networking partner for AI factory expansion.
Both organisations will align their development roadmaps, co-optimising OpenAI’s model and infrastructure software with Nvidia’s hardware and software platforms.
The first deployment on the Vera Rubin platform in 2026 is expected to set the foundation for subsequent gigawatt-scale facilities. Each phase will add capacity to OpenAI’s infrastructure, ensuring the scalability needed to meet growing global demand for AI services.
Collaboration with the broader ecosystem
This agreement builds on existing collaborations that both companies maintain with a wide range of partners.
OpenAI and Nvidia continue to work with Microsoft, Oracle, SoftBank and Stargate partners to create what they describe as the world’s most advanced AI infrastructure.
Together, these alliances are aimed at providing the robust compute and networking capacity required for hyperscale AI deployments, while enabling developers, enterprises and public organisations to access advanced AI services.
Supporting global AI adoption
OpenAI now reports more than 700 million weekly active users, alongside strong uptake across enterprises, small businesses and developer communities. The expansion of AI-ready data centres will support this growth and help deliver new capabilities to a wider base of users.
According to Jensen Huang, this is a new chapter for digital infrastructure and AI growth.
“We’re literally going to connect intelligence to every application, to every use case, to every device – and we’re just at the beginning,” he says. “This is the first 10GW, I assure you of that.”
For Nvidia, the partnership demonstrates its role as a core enabler of AI infrastructure at scale, building on its leadership in GPUs, systems and interconnect technologies.
For OpenAI, it provides the dedicated capacity to continue scaling its models and pursuing its mission to build artificial general intelligence that benefits humanity.
Both companies expect to finalise the details of the strategic agreement in the coming weeks, with further updates anticipated as the first gigawatt deployment approaches in 2026.
