Think about the largest projects in the world – nuclear reactors, mega dams, oil pipelines. Now multiply them. That’s the scale of what OpenAI and Nvidia just announced on Monday. The two companies signed a letter of intent for a strategic partnership to build at least 10 gigawatts of AI infrastructure – with Nvidia investing up to $100 billion as the systems roll out. To put it in perspective: This is the largest AI infrastructure project ever attempted.
What exactly is happening?
The plan calls for deploying 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems – enough compute power to handle between 4 and 5 million GPUs, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
The first 1 gigawatt will come online in the second half of 2026, powered by Nvidia’s new Vera Rubin platform.
Consider that 10GW equal the power of 10 nuclear reactors.
A typical big data centre consumes 50–100MW megawatts. This project would be 100 times bigger than the largest facilities running today.
It would require as much electricity as multiple major cities combined.
The costs are also mind-boggling. On a recent earnings call, Huang estimated that building 1GW of data centre capacity costs $50–60 billion, with $35 billion going straight into Nvidia systems.
At that rate, a 10GW project could top $500 billion in total investment – rivalling the cost of entire national energy programs.
Why this Open AI Nvidia partnership matters
OpenAI is growing at breakneck speed, with 700 million weekly active users. To keep up, it needs staggering amounts of compute power.
Nvidia, meanwhile, dominates the GPU market but needs big, locked-in customers to justify its own massive chip production.
By teaming up, they’re essentially anchoring America’s dominance in the global AI arms race.
And make no mistake, this arms race is real. Whoever builds the biggest, fastest, and most energy-dense AI infrastructure doesn’t just win Wall Street. They win national security, industrial competitiveness, and global leadership.
The stock market loved the news. Nvidia rose nearly 4% Monday, adding about $170 billion in market cap – more than most companies are worth in total.
If the project succeeds, it will anchor Nvidia’s dominance in AI for the next decade.
For investors, the ripple effects are enormous!
That $100 billion won’t stop at Nvidia and OpenAI.
It flows outward into:
• Chips (think memory, networking, storage).
• Cooling systems (from liquid immersion to next-gen HVAC).
• Switches and interconnects
• Power generation (nuclear, renewables, microgrids).
And eventually the software layer on top.
This is how wealth gets built: one giant project that lifts an entire supply chain. If you’re not yet a subscriber to South African Investor, I urge you to sign up now. This AI megatrend is unstoppable and we have some of the best recommendations on what to buy now to profit from AI.
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