A hundred billion dollars and ten gigawatts
Nvidia and OpenAI announced an infrastructure partnership on Monday. The number that matters to a Swiss SME is not the money — it is the electricity.
On 22 September 2025, Nvidia and OpenAI announced a letter of intent to deploy at least ten gigawatts of Nvidia systems, with Nvidia intending to invest up to a hundred billion dollars as the systems come online. The first phase is targeted for the second half of 2026.
The financial figure is the headline. The gigawatts are the substance.
Ten gigawatts, in terms a Swiss reader can picture
Switzerland’s entire electricity consumption averages roughly seven gigawatts. The announced deployment is, in power terms, larger than this country.
That comparison is not a criticism — it is spread across years and continents — but it is the clearest available illustration of what « AI infrastructure » now means physically, and it explains several things that look puzzling from a distance.
What it explains
Why prices fell eighty per cent in June and yet capacity is still constrained. Why providers are so interested in routing your request to the smallest model that can answer it, as the 8 August post described. Why data-centre location is becoming a political question in several countries.
And why, when you ask a vendor for a European data centre, the answer is sometimes « not for that model ». It is not reluctance. It is that the capacity is not there yet.
What it means for your planning
Two practical things. First, do not assume today’s prices are the floor; they are the product of a subsidised land-grab, and the 15 September budget advice — assume usage growth, set a ceiling — is the correct posture either way.
Second, if data residency matters to you, ask about it early and in writing, because it is a capacity question rather than a policy one and capacity takes years to build.
Nothing here requires action this week. It is context for a decision you will make in 2026.