SB Energy, majority-owned by SoftBank, offered OpenAI warrants valued at about $5.5 billion to secure OpenAI as a data-center tenant, as described in draft IPO documents cited by The Wall Street Journal.

Nvidia is reportedly weighing a parallel roughly $3 billion investment in SB Energy tied to the Ohio data-center project, illustrating a circular ownership dynamic among model, power, and parent entities.

OpenAI has committed to a 20-year lease for SB Energy’s planned 10-gigawatt data-center campus in southern Ohio, with first operations aimed for 2028; both OpenAI and SB Energy have each contributed $500 million to a 1.2-gigawatt facility in Texas.

The warrants function as a cost-free today instrument that only dilutes if the underlying equity rises, shifting some risk to IPO investors rather than the company’s current balance sheets.

Public comment from OpenAI or SB Energy is not disclosed, with reporting relying on unnamed sources; focus remains on the contract shape—20-year terms, 10 gigawatts, and rising warrant values—without detailing terms.

The broader market context shows rising debt guarantees and cautious data-center lending, with notable moves like Nvidia talks and Oracle-sized packages requiring anchor investments.

The 10-gigawatt figure signals the project’s scale, roughly the electricity demand of a mid-sized European country.

Risks include SB Energy’s development-stage status with no operational data centers yet, potential delays or cost overruns, and high customer concentration risk due to OpenAI being a major tenant.

Market sentiment toward Nvidia remains bullish, with expectations it could become the world’s most valuable company by year-end 2026, feeding the debate over circular financing in OpenAI’s buildout.

Warrants reflect future expectations rather than current cash flow, rising from about $3.6 billion earlier in 2026 to roughly $5.5 billion mid-year, sensitive to market volatility and IPO terms.

The described trend depicts a closed-loop AI development ecosystem where SoftBank, Nvidia, and OpenAI coordinate across energy infrastructure, chip supply, and ownership stakes to support AI deployment beyond traditional utility and data-center models.

Ambiguity remains on risk distribution if demand underperforms: a 20-year lease is a liability for OpenAI but an asset for SB Energy, with warrants tying OpenAI’s value to its contractual leverage.