OpenAI and Nvidia’s $100B AI plan will require power equal to 10 nuclear reactors

In a groundbreaking announcement, OpenAI and Nvidia revealed a strategic partnership aimed at deploying a staggering 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems to bolster OpenAI's AI infrastructure. The collaboration is set to see Nvidia invest as much as $100 billion as the systems gradually come online, with the first gigawatt expected to be operational in the latter half of 2026, utilizing Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, emphasized the importance of computational power in this venture, stating, "Everything starts with compute. Compute infrastructure will be the basis for the economy of the future." He highlighted that the collaboration with Nvidia will not only lead to significant AI advancements but will also enable widespread empowerment for individuals and businesses. The scale of the proposed 10-gigawatt project is unprecedented in the realm of AI infrastructure. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang explained to CNBC that the power required for this initiative is comparable to that consumed by 4 to 5 million graphics processing units, reflecting the company's total GPU shipments for the current year and marking a significant increase from last year. To put this into perspective, the energy demand of 10 gigawatts is equivalent to the output of about 10 nuclear reactors, with each reactor generating around 1 gigawatt. In contrast, today's data centers typically consume between 10 megawatts to 1 gigawatt, with large facilities averaging between 50 to 100 megawatts. OpenAI's planned infrastructure would vastly surpass these figures, necessitating power on par with that used by multiple large cities. This partnership follows OpenAI's explosive growth, amassing 700 million weekly active users. Following the announcement, Nvidia's stock saw a nearly 4% rise, boosting its market capitalization by approximately $170 billion. This collaboration positions Nvidia as OpenAI's key strategic partner for compute and networking, complementing OpenAI's existing partnerships with major players like Microsoft, Oracle, and SoftBank, as well as the recently formed Stargate project partners. Notably, this announcement comes shortly after Nvidia's $5 billion investment in Intel, acquiring a 4% stake in the long-time competitor as they embark on developing custom data center and PC products together.