Nvidia announced a $3 billion direct investment in Lancium, the power infrastructure provider behind OpenAI's Stargate AI compute initiative.
Nvidia is expanding into the most fundamental layer of AI infrastructure—power supply. The chip giant plans to invest up to $3 billion in Blackstone-backed power infrastructure developer Lancium, aiming to secure several gigawatts of power and fund data center projects for its customers.
According to The Information on August 7, Nvidia will invest $2 billion in Lancium and commit an additional $1 billion contingent on the developer reaching power-access milestones. The initial $2 billion will grant Nvidia approximately 20% equity; if the follow-on investment closes, ownership rises to roughly 30%. The deal values Lancium at an enterprise value of approximately $10 billion, including debt.
This investment targets AI infrastructure's core bottleneck: energy. Lancium is the power provider for the "Stargate" AI campus that OpenAI and Oracle are building in Abilene, Texas. The company has already developed 4 gigawatts of power on the Texas grid, with another 15 gigawatts pending grid connection. For Nvidia, securing a stake in Lancium means preemptively locking in scarce power resources for its vast customer base.
The investment is structured in two phases. The initial $2 billion purchases roughly 20% of Lancium's equity; release of the remaining $1 billion is tied to achieving specific thresholds, including grid interconnection completion, which would increase Nvidia's stake to approximately 30%.
Notably, this is a pure equity investment without credit guarantees for data center construction and leasing. According to The Information's sources, Nvidia is considering credit guarantees for other projects, including a massive 10-gigawatt data center venture in Ohio involving OpenAI and SoftBank.
The Lancium deal represents the latest major investment by Nvidia. In the quarter through April, Nvidia invested $18.6 billion in private companies and infrastructure funds—exceeding its total investments for the entire preceding year.
This year alone, Nvidia has committed $2 billion each to cloud service providers CoreWeave and Nebius, and completed investments in networking equipment companies Lumentum and Coherent as well as semiconductor firm Marvell. These moves reflect Nvidia's transformation from chip vendor into a core investor in the AI infrastructure ecosystem.
Lancium's 4 contracted gigawatts of power cover several major projects: 1.2 gigawatts will supply the OpenAI-Oracle campus in Abilene, the core computing node of "Stargate"; 900 megawatts will power a new data center that partner Crusoe is building in Abilene for Microsoft; QTS Data Centers has signed for 1 gigawatt in Turkey, Texas; and Crusoe has another 1-gigawatt project under construction in Childress.
Beyond locked-in assets, Lancium has secured Texas land that could host 15 gigawatts of power, currently awaiting grid connection approval. The company is also preparing to develop additional power capacity before 2035 and stands to benefit from a proposed ultra-high-voltage transmission network in Texas.
As the deal emerged, a complication arose. On Monday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered a suspension of new data center grid connection applications, requiring further review.
This policy move creates uncertainty around Lancium's expansion timeline. However, sources familiar with the situation noted that Lancium's 15 pending gigawatts are favorably positioned—its utility partner American Electric Power has already completed the necessary line studies to feed power to Lancium's campuses, providing a first-mover advantage in the approval process.
Additionally, the financing supports Lancium's capital markets plans. Two sources familiar with the matter said Lancium is considering an IPO in 2027. If pursued, it would join data center and infrastructure developers such as Switch and CyrusOne in going public. Nvidia's equity stake not only provides Lancium capital to scale, but also serves as an endorsement for its potential public listing.