LORDSTOWN — The village has secured a major role in the nation’s artificial intelligence revolution. However, calling it the home of an AI data center is open to interpretation.

OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank Group Corp. in a news release issued Wednesday said Lordstown is one of “five new U.S. AI data center sites under Stargate, OpenAI’s overarching AI infrastructure platform.”

The partners said Lordstown and a location in Milam County, Texas, are being developed through a SoftBank and OpenAI alliance. The three other sites are in Shackelford County, Texas; Dona Ana County, New Mexico, and an unnamed place in the Midwest.

Selected through a process launched in January, the partners reviewed more than 300 proposals from 30-plus states. The five facilities will join the flagship campus in Abilene, Texas.

SoftBank, with headquarters in Japan, purchased the former GM property last month from Foxconn for $375 million. The Taiwanese company said it is remaining at the plant long term and will focus on AI data center equipment.

The new owner said it has broken ground in Lordstown on an advanced data center design and is expected to be operational next year. Stargate is a $500 billion, four-year project designed to bolster the nation’s AI infrastructure.

“Together, these sites represent an important step in enabling faster deployment, greater scalability and improved cost efficiency — making high-performance compute more widely accessible,” the news release states.

Village Mayor Jackie Woodward said Wednesday that an operational AI data center is not part of SoftBank and OpenAI’s plans.

“They have assured me that there is nothing other than what was in our site plan review, which is the manufacturing of the AI components, and they will have the proof-of-concept building,” Woodward said of her Wednesday morning conversation with company representatives. “There is no fully functional operational data center.”

Woodward said that in their discussion, the representatives suggested the news release had been “misconstrued” regarding Lordstown’s designation.

“There is the small building that’s going to be in the front,” she said. “It’s going to be the showroom. It will be a data center, but it is on such a small scale that it is not functional. You’re not going to get anything out of it.”

When asked for clarification Wednesday, OpenAI spokeswoman Kate Waters emailed, “I can confirm that all the locations will be AI data centers.”

An email to SoftBank for comment had not been returned as of press time.

The Youngstown / Warren Regional Chamber called the news encouraging.

“It’s another sign that we have transformed our economy, that we’re driving major investment, creating jobs and strengthening the Valley’s position in the global marketplace,”

said Guy Coviello, the Chamber’s CEO and president. “We pledge to keep working hard on our strategic initiatives — growing talent, population and housing — so that Foxconn, SoftBank and all other companies associated with Stargate can be successful in the Mahoning Valley.”

The partners said its six locations bring “Stargate to nearly 7 gigawatts of planned capacity and over $400 billion in investment over the next three years. This puts us on a clear path to securing the full $500 billion, 10-gigawatt commitment we announced in January by the end of 2025, ahead of schedule.

“Together, these sites are expected to create over 25,000 onsite jobs, and tens of thousands of additional jobs across the U.S. We remain in the process of evaluating additional sites.”

It did not break down the economic impact for the Lordstown facility.