SB Energy, the SoftBank-owned power and data center developer that has become one of OpenAI's most important infrastructure partners, filed publicly for a Nasdaq IPO on Tuesday under the ticker SBE, according to its S-1 registration statement and coverage by Reuters, CNBC, and The Wall Street Journal. The filing pulls back the curtain on a company with a contracted data center backlog the company says will exceed 400 billion dollars, almost no operating data centers, and a deep, two-way dependence on OpenAI.
Bankers have reportedly targeted proceeds of 5 to 7 billion dollars, according to The Wall Street Journal, though the company has not disclosed the number or price of shares in the offering. For more context on this story, see our ongoing AI trends.
OpenAI's 5.5 billion dollar warrant package
The most striking disclosure concerns OpenAI itself. The AI company holds approximately 4 million SB Energy warrants valued at an estimated 5.5 billion dollars, which are expected to vest in stages. About 1.73 million warrants are set to vest and become exercisable when the IPO closes, with additional portions tied to SB Energy reaching specified market-value milestones.
The relationship runs in both directions. OpenAI invested 500 million dollars in SB Energy earlier this year and is expected to own a single-digit percentage of its shares after the IPO. In turn, SB Energy has committed to purchase at least 50 million dollars of OpenAI software and services through 2028, including ChatGPT Enterprise, according to the filing. CNBC reported that the filing describes SB Energy as substantially dependent on OpenAI, a notably candid risk disclosure for a company seeking public investors. Nvidia, which put 3 billion dollars into SB Energy, is also named among the company's high-profile backers in the IPO coverage.
A 400 billion dollar backlog, built on paper
SB Energy's contracted position is enormous relative to its operating history. In August, OpenAI signed 17 leases covering roughly 8 gigawatts of capacity at SB Energy's planned southern Ohio campus, a project backed by about 10 gigawatts of power infrastructure that has not yet been built. Across its portfolio, SB Energy has contracts covering nearly 9 gigawatts of computing capacity, but the company currently has no operational data centers, with roughly 800 megawatts under construction, according to the filing coverage.
The company says its contracted data-center backlog will exceed 400 billion dollars. Its current revenue, by contrast, comes primarily from renewable-energy projects, which generated about 140 million dollars during the first half of 2026. SB Energy's net loss widened to 3.2 billion dollars from roughly 250 million dollars a year earlier, an increase the company attributes largely to changes in the estimated value of its warrant liabilities, including the instruments it issued to OpenAI.
The deal that landed OpenAI
The IPO filing also sheds light on how SB Energy won its anchor tenant. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that SoftBank's data-center venture offered OpenAI a package of perks worth an estimated 5.5 billion dollars to land its business, an unusually aggressive incentive structure for an infrastructure supplier. Business Insider noted that OpenAI now finds itself on nearly every side of SB Energy's business: investor, warrant holder, landlord's largest customer, and software vendor.
That web of entanglements is precisely what public-market investors will have to price. SB Energy's valuation story rests on the assumption that OpenAI's compute commitments convert into built data centers and real revenue, while OpenAI's 5.5 billion dollars in warrants give it an equity stake in keeping its supplier solvent and on schedule. Critics of AI infrastructure financing have pointed to circular arrangements of this kind as a systemic risk, and the S-1 puts the details on the public record for the first time.
A test case for AI infrastructure IPOs
SB Energy is among the first pure-play AI power and data center developers to reach public markets during this buildout cycle, and its debut will be read as a signal for the pipeline of similar listings behind it. The company is asking investors to fund construction against contracts with a single dominant customer, in a market where power availability, grid interconnection, and turbine and transformer supply chains are the binding constraints. Reuters framed the listing as part of a broader wave in which AI electricity demand is turbocharging infrastructure companies.
Several practical questions remain open until the roadshow. The company has not disclosed the size or price of the offering, the valuation it is seeking, or how proceeds will be split between funding Ohio construction and shoring up a balance sheet that absorbed a 3.2 billion dollar loss in the first half of 2026 alone. Investors will also want the vesting schedule for OpenAI's remaining warrants, since those milestones effectively tie a portion of the AI company's upside to SB Energy's post-IPO market value.
If the listing prices well, expect more AI infrastructure suppliers to follow. If it stumbles on the dependence disclosures, the fault line will be clear: the market will pay for gigawatts, but it wants to see them built.
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