OpenAI has received warrants valued at an estimated $5.5 billion in SB Energy, adding another financial link between the artificial intelligence company and the SoftBank-backed infrastructure developer as billions of dollars flow into the data centers needed to run frontier AI systems.
The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI was issued warrants worth an estimated $5.5 billion in SB Energy, describing the arrangement as a major incentive offered to secure OpenAI as a data-center tenant ahead of SB Energy’s planned initial public offering.
Reuters subsequently reported the figure but said it could not immediately independently verify the Journal’s report. OpenAI and SB Energy did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment outside regular business hours.
SB Energy Is Competing for OpenAI’s Infrastructure Demand
The warrants deepen an already complicated relationship between AI companies, infrastructure developers and their financial backers.
The Journal describes SB Energy’s agreement as an effort to land OpenAI as a data-center tenant ahead of its IPO, while noting that OpenAI had previously invested in the company.
Reuters says SoftBank Group and OpenAI are planned tenants across three SB Energy data centers. SB Energy, founded in 2019 as a SoftBank subsidiary, develops large-scale power and data-center infrastructure and is building multiple campuses to support growing AI workloads.
That makes OpenAI valuable to an infrastructure developer for more than rental income. A major anchor tenant can strengthen the economics behind enormous data-center projects that require electricity, land, networking equipment and substantial upfront financing.
Giving that customer warrants adds another layer: the tenant may also participate financially in the infrastructure company’s growth.
Nvidia Is Already Putting Billions Behind the Same Buildout
SB Energy’s financing network also includes Nvidia.
Earlier in August, Nvidia invested $1.5 billion in SB Energy and agreed to provide a guarantee of up to $105 billion to help OpenAI lease a data center in Ohio being developed by the company.
That arrangement illustrates how the AI infrastructure market is creating relationships that extend far beyond a straightforward customer buying GPUs from a supplier.
A chipmaker can invest in an infrastructure developer. The infrastructure developer can provide capacity to an AI company. The AI company can hold warrants in that developer. At the same time, financial guarantees can help make enormous compute projects commercially viable.
For investors, those interlocking agreements make it increasingly important to understand not only who is spending on AI infrastructure, but who is financing, guaranteeing and economically benefiting from that spending.
A Potential $50 Billion-Plus IPO Raises the Stakes
SB Energy could soon test public-market appetite for that infrastructure strategy.
Reuters previously reported that the company could seek a valuation of more than $50 billion in an IPO that could arrive as early as next month.
At that scale, the reported $5.5 billion warrant package is significant. It also shows just how valuable reliable AI demand has become to companies trying to finance the next generation of data centers.
OpenAI needs enormous amounts of compute. SB Energy needs anchor tenants to justify enormous infrastructure projects. Nvidia benefits when those projects translate into demand for accelerated computing.
The $5.5 billion warrant arrangement shows how those incentives are increasingly being tied together—not merely through technology contracts, but through equity and financing structures that could shape who ultimately profits from the AI data-center buildout.
