UPDATE: A source familiar with Stargate's plans for the Lordstown site told 21 News Thursday (09/25/25) the data center there will take up a 'small part' of the site's footprint and use a small percentage of the 1.5 gigawatts of power previously reported. Read more here. 

The former GM plant in Lordstown is taking on a growing role in the Stargate Project, a $500 billion effort from OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank to build artificial intelligence infrastructure in the United States.

In addition to SoftBank and Foxconn’s plans to create an AI server manufacturing hub at the facility, OpenAI announced Tuesday it will partner with SoftBank to build a data center at the site — one of five new data centers the companies are building across the country alongside Stargate partner Oracle. 

“AI data centers are basically like the brains that help artificial intelligence do their work,” explained OhioX CEO Chris Berry in an interview with 21 News. “They're the ones that are able to help with the large language models, the LLMs, that OpenAI and companies like that use to make artificial intelligence possible.”

Having a data center and a manufacturing facility based in the same location could strengthen efficiency, according to Jim Grice, a partner at Akerman LLP and chair of the law firm’s data centers and digital infrastructure team. 

“Because there's such a surge of activity in the AI data center buildout, there's … a supply chain delay for the needed equipment,” Grice said. “The benefit comes in the more efficient rollout and deployment of the data center function, because there's a lot of equipment that goes into these facilities.”

In a statement, Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber President and CEO Guy Coviello said the announcement is “another sign that we have transformed our economy … creating jobs and strengthening the Valley's position in the global marketplace.”

The jobs created by AI data center projects are often most concentrated in the construction phase, as data centers themselves don’t require much manpower to operate. While those jobs would be temporary, Grice argued that this doesn’t always mean the jobs are short-term. 

“The one thing about the construction phase of a data center [is], these data centers are so big and they're so involved and they're so multi-phased that typically, it's a significant period of time before you even complete the first installation of construction,”  Grice said. 

A higher number of permanent jobs would be expected to be created by the manufacturing part of the facility. 

The Lordstown data center is one of two new sites that, combined, can scale to 1.5 gigawatts over the next 18 months. Berry told 21 News Northeast Ohio serves as an attractive location for a data center because of its strong energy infrastructure — but the existing energy supply may not be enough in the long term. 

“Seeing and reading reports myself of these data centers popping up outside of Ohio as well, environmental concerns are a big one,” Berry said. “So things like renewables, a lot of these companies are thinking about it. They're being proactive. But it's no secret that we need more energy in America.”

Despite that pressure, Grice believes the nation's power grid will be better for it in the long term. 

“They're ultimately going to give rise to a much more robust transmission grid, because they create the demand for the power,” Grice said. “As we have demand for the power, that gives rise to a business case to build more power generation, to build more transmission.”

“Data centers should help stabilize the grid, stabilize the power supply, and in most jurisdictions, they're trying to come up with pricing mechanisms to more rapidly share the burden in the right way,” he added.