OpenAI signed a lease for a 202,400-square-foot industrial warehouse at 1411 Harbour Way South in Richmond, California, according to the Mercury News, citing Contra Costa County property records. The lease was recorded on March 9, 2026, under OpenAI OpCo LLC, the Grandview Independent reported.

The property is the Portside Commerce Center, a Brookfield Properties-owned industrial facility on a 15.75-acre parcel at the Port of Richmond. It includes 6,757 square feet of office space and a 202,371-square-foot warehouse, according to the Grandview Independent. The building had been vacant since battery startup Moxion Power collapsed in 2024.

The Robotics Connection

While the lease itself doesn’t specify what OpenAI plans to do with the space, a Business Insider investigation published in January 2026 reported that OpenAI told employees in December 2025 it planned to open a second robotics lab in Richmond. A job posting for a “robotics operator” listed Richmond as the location.

That same investigation described OpenAI’s existing San Francisco robotics lab as operating three shifts around the clock with roughly 100 data collectors. They use 3D-printed controllers called GELLOs to teleoperate Franka robotic arms, teaching them household tasks like putting bread in a toaster and folding laundry. The lab has more than quadrupled in size since launching in February 2025, Business Insider reported.

A 202,000-square-foot industrial warehouse would represent a massive scale-up from the current SF facility, which shares a building with OpenAI’s finance team.

Part of a Bay Area Leasing Spree

The Richmond deal is the latest in a series of aggressive real estate moves. The Real Deal reported that OpenAI has now secured:

  • 439,000 square feet across five buildings in Mountain View (announced earlier the same week)
  • 280,000 square feet at the former Dropbox headquarters in San Francisco’s Mission Bay (completed March 2026)
  • Over 1 million square feet total office space in San Francisco, concentrated in Mission Bay
  • 223,130 square feet of expanded office space in Bellevue, Washington (finalized February 2026)

Combined with the Richmond warehouse, OpenAI’s recent leasing activity puts its Bay Area footprint well above 1.6 million square feet.

Why It Matters for Agents

OpenAI’s robotics push follows a broader industry pattern. Physical Intelligence, the San Francisco startup founded by former Google DeepMind researchers, is currently in talks to raise $1 billion at an $11 billion valuation. OpenAI itself published a request for proposals earlier this year seeking US-based manufacturing partners for consumer devices, robotics, and cloud data centers.

The shift from software agents to embodied agents requires a fundamentally different infrastructure. Software agents need GPUs and API endpoints. Robotic agents need warehouse floors, physical hardware, and hundreds of human data collectors working around the clock. Richmond’s industrial zoning and proximity to OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters make it a logical site for that kind of operation.

The facility could accommodate hundreds of workers, according to the Mercury News listing. If OpenAI replicates its SF lab model at Richmond’s scale, the company would have one of the largest commercial robotics data collection operations in the US.