SoftBank Acquires Ohio Factory to Build AI Servers

SoftBank Seals Deal for Lordstown Factory

Breaking news: Bloomberg reports that SoftBank is the mystery buyer of Foxconn’s former General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio. The Japanese conglomerate plans to repurpose the facility for AI server production as part of its Stargate data center project alongside OpenAI and Oracle. The acquisition was routed through Crescent Dune LLC, a Delaware entity formed last July.

Foxconn originally purchased the plant in late 2021 from electric vehicle startup Lordstown Motors, aiming to establish a North American EV hub. After closing the sale in 2022, Foxconn’s EV manufacturing tenants—Fisker, IndiEV and others—folded, leaving Monarch Tractor as the lone customer. With SoftBank stepping in, Monarch’s production future is now uncertain.

Monarch Tractor, a California startup specializing in electric and autonomous farm equipment, relied on Foxconn’s Ohio plant for its manufacturing contract. Neither Monarch nor SoftBank has commented publicly, leaving industry watchers speculating about production timelines and strategic pivots for agritech innovators.

Challenges and Opportunities

SoftBank’s Stargate initiative—announced day after Trump’s 2021 inauguration—includes a flagship data center in Texas with plans to expand domestically and internationally. Yet funding woes and trade tensions have already slowed progress, forcing a rethink of deployment pace and partner ecosystems.

• Supply chain disruptions impacting server component availability
• Capital constraints as investors weigh geopolitical risks
• Regulatory hurdles amid ongoing trade wars and export controls

Implications for the Data Center Ecosystem

This deal underscores the high stakes of onshore data center expansion. Partners like OpenAI and Oracle rely on strategic manufacturing hubs to minimize latency and control costs. As cloud infrastructure demand surges, securing reliable production sites becomes mission-critical.

How can tech leaders best navigate these shifts? Site selection, capacity forecasting, and risk modeling are key. Organizations must balance speed-to-market with supply resilience to avoid costly delays.

QuarkyByte’s data-driven approach helps cloud operators and hardware manufacturers map demand curves, optimize resource allocation, and simulate policy impacts. From initial feasibility studies to full-scale rollouts, we turn complex variables into actionable roadmaps.