SB Energy

SB Energy is a SoftBank Group subsidiary, also backed by OpenAI, that develops large-scale power and data-center infrastructure in the United States. Founded in 2019, it is building several multi-gigawatt data-center campuses for AI workloads, including OpenAI's planned Ohio campus and a 1.2-gigawatt site in Milam County, Texas (Source: sbenergy.com; reuters.com). It describes itself as "backed by SoftBank Group and OpenAI" and "made up of power and data center veterans" (Source: sbenergy.com).

Infobox

Snapshot

Financing and corporate events

The August 15, 2026 figures are reported as terms under discussion, not as agreements signed. The Nvidia equity investment was described by The Information, and relayed by Reuters, as being in talks, citing people familiar with the discussions.

Business

SB Energy develops both the power generation and the data-center shell for hyperscale AI campuses, a combination it presents as delivering "critical physical infrastructure at scale" (Source: sbenergy.com). It states that initial facilities were under construction and expected to enter service starting in 2026 (Source: sbenergy.com).

To build in-house data-center capability the company acquired Studio 151, a data-center construction-management, procurement, engineering and operations firm the company describes as having worked on twenty data-center campuses. Co-chief executive Abhijeet Sathe stated that SB Energy and OpenAI had worked with Studio 151 across multiple projects over the preceding eighteen months (Source: sbenergy.com).

OpenAI relationship

OpenAI is both a customer and an investor. Announcing the March 2026 partnership, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman said that "partnering with SB Energy brings together their strength in data center infrastructure and energy development and OpenAI's deep domain expertise in data center engineering," describing the arrangement as "a fast, reliable way to scale compute through large, highly optimized AI data centers" (Source: sbenergy.com).

For the Milam County site the company states that it designed the data center to minimise water usage and plans to build new generation to serve its energy needs and "protect Texas ratepayers" — a framing that responds to the cost-allocation objections documented on Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics. The company states the project will create thousands of construction jobs (Source: sbenergy.com).

The relationship is also collateralised in the other direction. The Wall Street Journal reported on 30 August 2026, from draft IPO documents it reviewed, that SB Energy issued OpenAI warrants estimated at $5.5 billion to secure the company as a data-center tenant ahead of the listing, and noted that OpenAI had previously invested in SB Energy (Source: wsj.com). Only the article's opening paragraphs were retrievable; the remainder is paywalled, so no further terms of the warrant issue are recorded here.

Ohio campus and the Nvidia financing

SB Energy is the developer of the Ohio data-center campus planned for OpenAI, and is therefore the entity at the centre of the financing restructure recorded on Nvidia & TSMC — AI Compute Infrastructure. As reported on August 15, 2026, Nvidia was in talks to invest as much as $3 billion in SB Energy — roughly half at the signing of the Ohio deal and roughly half as part of the planned IPO — alongside talks with OpenAI and SB Energy over around $100 billion in credit support for the campus, reduced from the $250 billion guarantee previously discussed (Source: reuters.com; reuters.com).

The lease was signed on August 17, 2026. Axios reported that OpenAI took a 20-year lease on the campus, which it identified as PORTS-Pike and described as an 8 IT-gigawatt facility powered by 10 gigawatts of new generation, built and owned by SB Energy on private land and federal property formerly used for uranium enrichment. Nvidia is the exclusive chip supplier, agreed in an SEC filing to guarantee up to $105 billion in conditional lease and power payment obligations to SB Energy, and is investing $1.5 billion in the developer. Initial capacity is scheduled for 2028 (Source: axios.com).

Axios's account distinguishes 8 IT-gigawatts of facility capacity from 10 gigawatts of new generation; it is a single account, and the 8-gigawatt figure Bloomberg reported and the 10-gigawatt figure the Wall Street Journal reported for the same agreement are not reconciled in either of those accounts (see Nvidia & TSMC — AI Compute Infrastructure). The $1.5 billion equity figure sits against the up-to-$3 billion total Reuters relayed on August 15, 2026 as under discussion, of which roughly half was described as coming at the signing of the Ohio deal and roughly half at SB Energy's planned IPO (Source: reuters.com).

The structure ties a chip vendor's balance sheet to the equity and debt of the developer building capacity for its largest customer. It is an instance of the vendor-financing arrangements discussed on AI Bubble Debate and Private Credit & AI Infrastructure. Jensen Huang rejected characterisations of the structure as circular financing, writing on X that "OpenAI will pay the lease" (Source: axios.com).

Initial public offering

SB Energy filed a Form S-1 registration statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission dated August 31, 2026 and reported on September 1, seeking a listing on The Nasdaq Global Select Market and Nasdaq Texas under the symbol SBE, with SoftBank as controlling shareholder (SB Energy, Inc. Form S-1 Registration Statement (SEC, August 2026); Source: cnbc.com). The prospectus is subject to completion: the share count, price range and proceeds are blank, so the $5–7 billion raise the Wall Street Journal reported via CNBC does not come from the filing.

The filing's risk-factor summary states that the company has "limited operating history in data centers with none currently operational, are substantially dependent on OpenAI, and face challenges in personnel, labor and business management." The full risk factor identifies OpenAI as tenant under both the PORTS-Pike campus, "which makes up a substantial majority of our backlog," and the Milam County Buildings 1 and 2 leases; as "a significant equity investor"; and as "a strategic partner whose contractual rights extend across our data center development pipeline." It records that the Nvidia guaranty covers "the first 4.25 GW-IT of leases at the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus upon the occurrence of the applicable default conditions" (SB Energy, Inc. Form S-1 Registration Statement (SEC, August 2026)).

For the six months ended June 30, 2026 the company reported total revenue of $138.7 million — of which $58.7 million came from contracts with customers, the remainder being realized and unrealized change in the fair value of power price swap derivatives — and a net loss attributable to SB Energy, Inc. of $3,208.9 million, of which $589.5 million was non-cash stock-based compensation and $2,573.1 million a non-cash change in the fair value of its warrant liability. Accumulated deficit stood at $3,803.0 million. Backlog is reported at approximately $439 billion across 8.8 GW-IT of leased data-center campuses and 5.5 GWac of power, against an estimated $178 billion of backlog-associated capital expenditure on contracted projects alone (SB Energy, Inc. Form S-1 Registration Statement (SEC, August 2026)). CNBC's account, which reported the loss as "roughly $3.2 billion" and revenue as "about $139 million," records the totals without the non-cash composition (Source: cnbc.com).

Among its risk factors the prospectus pleads that the company "may face community opposition, local moratoria, and hyper-local dissent, including growing public resistance to AI and AI-related infrastructure" — the siting dynamic documented at Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics, entering a registration statement as disclosed investment risk. OpenAI is named 306 times in the document, SoftBank 325 and Nvidia 135 (Source: cnbc.com).

Relationships

• related: SoftBank Group — parent
• related: OpenAI — customer and investor; the campuses are built to its specification
• related: Nvidia & TSMC — AI Compute Infrastructure — discussed equity investor and credit-support counterparty for the Ohio campus
• deploys-in: Energy and Electric Power Sector — power generation built to serve data-center load
• related: Data Center Siting / AI Power Politics — the water, ratepayer and land questions the company's own materials address
• related: Private Credit & AI Infrastructure, AI Bubble Debate — the financing structures the Ohio arrangement is an instance of
• depends-on: SB Energy, Inc. Form S-1 Registration Statement (SEC, August 2026) — the registration statement, primary record for financials, backlog and risk factors

Open questions

• The Nvidia equity investment and the roughly $100 billion credit-support package were reported as under discussion on August 15, 2026; Axios reported on August 17, 2026 that Nvidia had agreed to guarantee up to $105 billion in conditional lease and power payment obligations and was investing $1.5 billion in the developer. Whether the remainder of the up-to-$3 billion equity figure, tied in the earlier reporting to the planned IPO, is still contemplated is not disclosed.
• The $5–7 billion raise size is attributed to the Wall Street Journal via CNBC rather than to the S-1, which is subject to completion and leaves the share count, price range and proceeds blank (SB Energy, Inc. Form S-1 Registration Statement (SEC, August 2026); Source: cnbc.com).
• Whether the campus the prospectus calls Cosmos, under which first-phase data-center revenue is expected, corresponds to PORTS-Pike, Milam County or a third site is not established from the filing text retrieved (SB Energy, Inc. Form S-1 Registration Statement (SEC, August 2026)).
• The identity of the developer behind individual land acquisitions reported in Ohio-adjacent siting disputes is not established in the available reporting.

Sources

• Axios / "OpenAI announces massive data center in Ohio with Nvidia guarantee" (2026-08-17)
• Reuters / "Nvidia eyes investing $3 billion in SB Energy under OpenAI data center deal, Information says" (2026-08-15)
• Reuters / "Nvidia scales back funding guarantee for Ohio OpenAI data center, WSJ reports" (2026-08-14)
• SB Energy / "OpenAI and SoftBank Group Partner with SB Energy" (2026-03-19)
• SB Energy corporate site, retrieved 2026-08-16 — sbenergy.com