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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Stephen Starr in Piketon, Ohio

Hope and concern swirl for Ohioans around ‘world’s largest datacenter’

men in suits posing with shovels outside near dumptrucks and american flags
Chris Wright, US energy secretary, fourth right, and Masayoshi Son, the chair and CEO of SoftBank Group Corp, third right, during a groundbreaking ceremony at the Portsmouth site in Piketon, Ohio, in March. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

On a winding road tucked away behind forests in the Appalachian foothills of southern Ohio is where OpenAI, Nvidia and Japanese investors are set to spend $500bn on one of the largest artificial intelligence datacenters on the planet.

Last March, the energy secretary, Chris Wright, the commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick and a host of Japanese and other dignitaries briefly descended on Piketon to enthusiastically break ground on a project to build 8GW worth of AI computing power.

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