U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno: SoftBank’s Portsmouth data center and power plant plans are ‘very different’ from Intel’s New Albany project
U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, has contrasted the investments made by a Japanese company in a Pike County data center and power plant with the delay of Intel’s semiconductor plants after the company received both federal and state funding.
SoftBank is planning to invest $33.3 billion in a research-focused data center and a natural gas power plant as part of President Donald Trump’s U.S.-Japan Strategic Trade and Investment Agreement.
Moreno told Statehouse News Bureau that SoftBank’s project is “very different” from Intel’s Licking County plants, which are still under construction after multiple deadline changes and have received over $1 billion in government funding.
“That was a government subsidized CHIPS deal that was a mess from the beginning,” Moreno said.
Ohio.news previously reported that Intel has received $1.5 billion in federal funding and $600 million in state grants to build a pair of semiconductor plants in New Albany.
The company received a total of $7.865 billion in direct funding from the U.S. Department of Commerce under the CHIPS Act, as well as a 25% investment tax credit.
Intel originally said that the plants would be operational by 2025 when the project was announced in 2022.
The company said in a statement last month that the first plant is now expected to be completed by 2030 and become operational by 2031, and that the second plant is to be completed by 2031 and be operational in 2032.
SoftBank recently announced that it has partnered with U.S. companies to launch the “Portsmouth Consortium” as part of the U.S.-Japan Trade Agreement in a March 20 press release.
“It’s fully funded, SoftBank has committed the money,” Moreno told Statehouse News Bureau. “I committed to southeast Ohio that I would never forget them. We have to unleash prosperity there, and this is going to do that, and you have just seen the beginning of how this is going to go.”
The Consortium will include a large-scale technology campus data center that could support advanced research in industries such as fusion, quantum computing, and national defense, according to a fact sheet from the Department of Energy and the Department of Commerce.
SoftBank Group and SB Energy also plan to build a 10-gigawatt power plant that will include at least 9.2 GW of natural gas generation to power the data center development.
SB Energy and AEP Ohio have also partnered to build $4.2 billion in new electrical transmission infrastructure, which SB Energy has committed to paying for to protect Ohioans from paying the costs through their electrical bills. The power plant aligns with Trump’s Ratepayer Protection Pledge, and electricity produced by the plant will also be delivered to the surrounding region.
SB Energy has also committed to paying for accelerated cleanup and remediation at the Portsmouth site.
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Tim Walsh and state Sen. Shane Wilkin, R-Hillsboro, previously said that the power plant will bring jobs to the area. The projects are expected to create 10,000 construction jobs over the next four years.
The data center is also expected to create 2,000 operational jobs, including custodial, electrical, facilities, maintenance, engineering, and technical roles, and tens of thousands of indirect jobs are expected across the region in manufacturing and service industries, according to the fact sheet.
In addition to the money invested in the datacenter and power plant, Softbank has also committed to a $40 million Community Benefits Agreement to support the surrounding Ohio communities. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Consortium was held on March 20, according to a press release from SoftBank.
