On May 20, digital infrastructure company SB Energy Corp., in which SoftBank Group holds a stake, announced that it has confidentially submitted a draft Form S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), initiating the listing process. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, the company has evolved from a solar and energy storage developer into a full-stack AI infrastructure platform spanning natural gas power generation, data center construction, and operations. Behind it lies a multi-hundred-billion-dollar market driven by global AI computing power demand and a profound "computing-power synergy" competition reshaping the global energy and digital infrastructure landscape.
Raising $18 Billion: SoftBank, OpenAI, and Ares Place Their Bets SB Energy's confidence in its IPO stems partly from substantial funding secured over the past year. In January 2026, OpenAI and SoftBank Group invested $5 billion each in SB Energy, injecting a total of $10 billion in equity capital and formally integrating SB Energy into the execution framework of the "Stargate" project. Prior to this, SB Energy had already secured $8 billion in redeemable preferred equity financing from the Ares Infrastructure Opportunities Fund in 2025, bringing cumulative funding to over $18 billion. According to CB Insights data, SB Energy has raised a total of $24 billion across four funding rounds, with investors including SoftBank, OpenAI, and Ares Management.
The collaboration with OpenAI extends beyond capital. OpenAI has selected SB Energy to build and operate its 1.2-gigawatt data center campus in Milam County, Texas, which is expected to commence operations gradually starting in 2026. OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman stated that this partnership "combines SB Energy's strengths in data center infrastructure and energy development with OpenAI's deep expertise in data center engineering," enabling "rapid and reliable computing power expansion." SB Energy co-CEO Rich Hossfeld noted that the collaboration will "accelerate our ability to deliver advanced AI data center campuses and related energy infrastructure at the required scale, advancing the Stargate project and securing the future development of the U.S. AI industry."
It is worth noting that SB Energy is not merely a passive investment recipient. As part of the deal, OpenAI, SoftBank, and SB Energy have established a non-exclusive priority partnership to jointly explore a new model integrating OpenAI's data center design capabilities with SB Energy's construction speed, cost control, and integrated energy delivery experience. Additionally, SB Energy has strengthened its end-to-end capabilities from development to operations by acquiring data center construction management company Studio 151.
Ohio Mega-Project: 9.2 GW Natural Gas Power + 10 GW Data Center What truly positions SB Energy at the forefront of AI infrastructure is its mega-project in Piketon, Ohio. In March 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a public-private partnership with SoftBank and SB Energy to build a 10-gigawatt data center and up to 10 gigawatts of supporting power generation facilities at the former Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant—now renamed the "PORTS Technology Campus." This includes at least 9.2 gigawatts of natural gas generating units. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, SB Energy, in collaboration with AEP Ohio, will invest $4.2 billion in grid upgrades and new transmission lines, with a clear commitment not to pass the costs on to local residents' electricity bills. Furthermore, SB Energy has pledged to cover site acceleration environmental cleanup and remediation costs and signed a $40 million community benefits agreement.
The total project investment of $33.3 billion—including the natural gas power generation portion—comes from Japanese funding and falls under the framework of the Trump administration's U.S.-Japan Strategic Trade and Investment Agreement. One gigawatt of generating capacity can power approximately 750,000 households simultaneously, while the 10-gigawatt data center at the PORTS campus would consume electricity equivalent to the needs of about 7.5 million households. Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated at the project launch that it will "increase generating capacity, create jobs, and ensure the United States wins the AI race"; Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick positioned it as part of "reindustrializing" America through large-scale energy and infrastructure projects.
However, this mega-project is not without controversy. Around the March 20, 2026, launch, some rural residents in Ohio initiated a petition to include a "ban on hyperscale data centers" in a state constitutional referendum—reflecting growing resistance across the United States to data centers' excessive consumption of water and electricity resources.
U.S. Power Dilemma: The Era of "Unable to Build Data Centers Even with Money" Arrives The reason SB Energy's IPO story warrants in-depth analysis lies in its business model, which precisely addresses the most significant structural pain point in global AI infrastructure construction: power supply is becoming the de facto constraint on computing power expansion. In the United States, the power supply situation is severe. At Silicon Valley industry summits, leaders from computing power cloud service providers and energy companies noted that AI computing clusters are undergoing exponential expansion, while traditional public grid expansion lags severely, leading to an increasingly pronounced supply-demand mismatch. The industry is accelerating its shift from reliance on public grids to "behind-the-meter self-generation" and distributed energy models.
In regions experiencing concentrated surges in computing power demand, grid capacity gaps are significant, with data center interconnection queueing periods extending for years. "Some leading tech companies have had to adopt 'on-site self-generation' models, using diesel generators, gas-fired units, and even second-hand power generation equipment to ensure continuous computing operations, highlighting the critical power supply situation." International Energy Agency (IEA) data shows that global data center electricity consumption grew by 17% year-over-year in 2025 to 485 terawatt-hours and is projected to nearly double to approximately 950 terawatt-hours by 2030. The energy consumption growth for training large AI models is even more staggering—the Stanford AI Index Report indicates that from GPT-2 (2019) to GPT-4 (2023), single-training energy consumption increased approximately 500,000-fold.
Simultaneously, power costs now account for over 60% of AI data center operating expenses, and the extreme load fluctuations of AI pose unprecedented challenges to power quality management.
SB Energy's Unique Narrative: A Full-Stack "Computing-Power Integration" Platform Against this macro backdrop, SB Energy's differentiated value becomes clear: it is not merely a data center developer but a "computing-power integration" platform combining natural gas power generation, grid interconnection, data center construction, and operations. In the new era where "money alone cannot build computing power," this full-stack capability presents a formidable competitive barrier.
SB Energy is not an isolated case. Meta Platforms recently disclosed it has signed agreements that could ultimately secure over 6 gigawatts of nuclear power supply. Hyperscale cloud providers like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are all accelerating efforts to build or secure dedicated power infrastructure. This trend reflects a structural shift in capital models: "The combination of distributed on-site generation and large-scale real estate platforms is becoming a viable path to bridge the supply-demand gap" (Data Center World 2026 conference conclusion). SB Energy's IPO is a landmark event marking this trend's transition from industrial practice to the capital markets.
From a financial perspective, SB Energy's IPO also faces indirect pressure from its shareholders. SoftBank Group is seeking up to $40 billion in bridge loans to support its cumulative $64.6 billion equity investment in OpenAI (approximately 13% stake), which would be SoftBank's largest-ever pure U.S. dollar borrowing. S&P downgraded SoftBank's credit outlook in March, expressing concerns that its massive investment in OpenAI could impair liquidity and asset credit quality. Analysts note that SoftBank's loan-to-value (LTV) ratio is approaching S&P's 35% warning threshold, with market concerns over its escalating leverage intensifying. In this context, promoting SB Energy's independent listing and financing could help SoftBank inject new capital into its AI infrastructure strategy without further increasing its own debt.
SB Energy's IPO timing remains subject to market conditions and SEC review processes. The company has not yet disclosed specific offering size or valuation ranges. However, regardless of the final valuation, this company, which has transformed from a solar developer into a full-stack AI infrastructure platform, has already become a core bellwether for observing the global "computing-power synergy" race, thanks to its $33.3 billion mega-project in Ohio and its deep ties with OpenAI.
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