Masayoshi Son, chairman of SoftBank Group, has formalized a plan to build a massive artificial intelligence (AI) data center in Ohio.
According to Nikkei and Kyodo News, Son on the 20th (local time) attended a groundbreaking ceremony for a gas-fired power plant in Piketon, Ohio, and launched the "Portsmouth Consortium," which brings together corporations participating in the data center and power plant projects.
The consortium includes 12 Japanese corporations such as SoftBank, Toshiba, Hitachi, Mizuho Bank, and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp., and nine U.S. corporations including Goldman Sachs.
Son said the consortium and tenant corporations plan to invest a total of $500 billion (about 753 trillion won) and break ground on the data center within the year. He emphasized, "It will be the largest single project in human history and bigger than all existing AI data centers combined."
The project is known to be separate from "Stargate," an AI infrastructure initiative being pursued with OpenAI and Oracle.
The data center is expected to be powered by electricity produced at the gas-fired power plant where the groundbreaking was held that day. The plant is the first project in Japan's $550 billion (about 829 trillion won) investment plan pledged during tariff negotiations with the United States, and about $33 billion will be invested.
U.S. government officials including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Energy Minister Chris Wright also attended the ceremony.