SoftBank's data center subsidiary SB Energy has granted warrants valuing the company at $5.5 billion to secure OpenAI tenants.

SB Energy, a data center developer under SoftBank, "exchanged" a huge amount of warrants for OpenAI to move in, thus forming a deep bond of interests between the two parties that goes far beyond a normal leasing relationship.

According to a draft prospectus obtained by The Wall Street Journal, SB Energy granted OpenAI a tranche of warrants valued at approximately $5.5 billion in exchange for the latter becoming a tenant of its data centers. These warrants, initially valued at approximately $3.6 billion when first granted in January, had risen to $5.5 billion by the end of June.

The soaring value of warrants has also been a significant factor contributing to SB Energy's widening book losses. In the first half of 2026, the company's net loss widened to approximately $3.2 billion, compared to a loss of only approximately $250 million in the same period of 2025.

SB Energy is expected to file for its IPO as early as this week and plans to list as early as next month, aiming to raise $5 billion to $7 billion. The prospectus also unusually notes that the company's business is "substantially dependent" on OpenAI, and that SB Energy could suffer significant adverse effects if OpenAI's financial situation deteriorates.

OpenAI is both a tenant and an investor.

The prospectus discloses a rather complex web of interests: SB Energy's data center customers are also investors in the company.

Currently, SoftBank and OpenAI are both planned tenants of SB Energy's three data centers, with SoftBank itself being a significant investor in OpenAI. OpenAI has previously invested $500 million in SB Energy and is expected to hold a single-digit percentage stake in SB Energy after the IPO.

Meanwhile, OpenAI's warrants will vest in tranches after the IPO, based on SB Energy reaching specific market capitalization milestones. This means that the higher SB Energy's future valuation, the greater the potential equity value that OpenAI will acquire.

The two companies also have a reverse procurement arrangement. SB Energy has committed to purchasing at least $50 million worth of software and services from OpenAI by 2028, including ChatGPT Enterprise. This structure allows OpenAI to play a dual role as both a "customer" and an "investor" of SB Energy, with their interests highly aligned.

Nvidia is also deeply embedded in this ecosystem. The prospectus shows that Nvidia holds shares in SB Energy and has committed $3 billion to the company through two private placement deals linked to the IPO, one of which allows Nvidia to subscribe for shares at a 10% discount to the IPO price.

In addition, SB Energy stated that its financing capabilities for its Ohio data center project largely depend on residual value guarantees provided by Nvidia.

Nearly 9GW of contracted capacity, yet the data centers are still not operational.

SB Energy is attempting to position itself as a new type of infrastructure platform capable of building data centers faster and acquiring power resources more efficiently than traditional developers. However, as of now, the company has no data centers officially operational, with approximately 800MW of computing power under construction.

Despite this, the company has already secured nearly 9GW of customer contracts and boasts one of the largest power storage pipelines among US data center developers. The vast majority of this capacity comes from its South Ohio campus. This project, which has not yet commenced construction, is planned to rely on a nearby natural gas power plant for approximately 10GW of power. Earlier this month, OpenAI signed 17 separate leases at the campus, covering approximately 8GW of computing capacity.

SB Energy also owns a 900MW data center project in Scurry County, Texas, which has yet to secure tenants. More notably, despite its data center business not yet generating revenue, SB Energy plans to disclose a backlog of over $400 billion in data center contracts in its IPO filing.

Currently, the company's revenue still primarily comes from its renewable energy business. In the first half of 2026, SB Energy achieved revenue of approximately $140 million, representing a year-over-year increase of 66%.

This means that SB Energy's current core focus is not on its realized data center revenue, but rather on the massive computing power orders, power reserves, and financing arrangements surrounding AI giants like OpenAI. As the company moves forward with its IPO, this highly intertwined "tenant-investor-supplier" relationship, and the gap between huge contracts and assets yet to be put into operation, will become important variables for investors to assess its valuation.

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