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SB Energy, the artificial intelligence power infrastructure company backed by Softbank, OpenAI and Nvidia, has filed for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Among the risk factors listed in the Tuesday filing, SB Energy said it's "substantially dependent" on the performance of OpenAI as both a tenant and equity investor. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was an early personal investor in the company as well. "This concentration means that our near-term revenues, project-level financing arrangements, and development plans are significantly linked to OpenAI's continued performance under our lease and related agreements," the filing states. The company relies heavily on outside financing from partners for its data center campuses, and hasn't yet generated any revenue from that portion of its business, according to the SEC filing. None of SB Energy's data centers are operational yet. For the first half of 2026, SB Energy incurred net losses of roughly $3.2 billion, citing "substantial investments" in its data center strategy, and generated about $139 million in revenue mostly from its legacy energy business over the same period. Nvidia announced in August that it would provide $105 billion in financing for an OpenAI data center in Ohio that will be built by SB Energy. "The reason Nvidia is on our part of the equation here is that, you know, helps us to unlock things like investment-grade financing. It helps to ensure the project is a success," CEO Rich Hossfeld told CNBC's "Squawk Box" after the financing announcement. The company will trade on the Nasdaq and Nasdaq Texas under the ticker symbol SBE. Softbank is the controlling shareholder. While the company hasn't announced pricing or a specific timeline for its debut, it could begin trading as soon as this month, The Wall Street Journal reported. According to the Journal, the company is looking to raise between $5 billion and $7 billion from the offering. The IPO prospectus also flagged the growing public backlash against data centers as a risk factor. "We may face community opposition, local moratoria and hyper-local dissent, including growing public resistance to AI and AI-related infrastructure, that may adversely affect our data center and power generation businesses and operations," the filing read. Among other risks the company disclosed in its S-1 were technological advancements that "could render our facilities obsolete or unmarketable," failure of businesses to adopt AI, regulatory changes and decelerating capex from hyperscalers. Mentions of OpenAI are almost as plentiful as Softbank itself, showing up 306 times throughout the S-1 compared to Softbank's 325. Nvidia is mentioned 135 times.
document fetched 2026-09-02 06:32 · canonical https://cnbc.com/2026/09/01/sb-energy-ipo-softbank-open-ai-nvidia.html