Nvidia is buying another $1.5 billion in SB Energy shares ahead of the SoftBank subsidiary's US initial public offering, bringing its total equity commitment to the company to $3 billion. The chipmaker's stake ties directly to an Ohio data center campus leased to OpenAI under a deal that requires exclusive use of Nvidia chips.
Nvidia is doubling down on the physical backbone of AI. The chipmaker is purchasing an additional $1.5 billion in SB Energy shares ahead of the company's upcoming US initial public offering, bringing its total equity commitment to $3 billion.
The deal structure
The latest tranche involves newly issued Class N non-voting shares, acquired through a combination of private placement and a prepaid forward contract. Both instruments are priced at the public offering price, meaning Nvidia gets in at the same rate as IPO investors, without the voting rights that might raise governance concerns.
SB Energy, the energy and data center subsidiary of SoftBank, is targeting a valuation of roughly $50 billion when it lists, with plans to raise between $5 billion and $7 billion and trade on Nasdaq under the ticker SBE. The company filed its IPO registration in late August 2026 and is reportedly separately seeking to raise $500 million from Japanese investors for data center and power infrastructure development.
An Ohio campus built around Nvidia chips
SB Energy's key asset is the PORTS-Pike Technology Campus in Ohio, a facility designed to deliver an initial AI computing load of 4.25 gigawatts, expandable to 8 gigawatts. The campus is primarily leased to OpenAI under a long-term agreement, and that lease mandates the exclusive use of Nvidia chips, tying every watt flowing through the site to Nvidia's GPU business.
Nvidia has also guaranteed up to $105 billion in residual value linked to the Ohio project.
SB Energy's financial picture
SB Energy reported a 66.4% increase in revenue year-over-year during the first half of 2026, reflecting surging demand for AI-grade data center capacity. Net losses widened over the same period.
Source: Crypto Briefing
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