OpenAI and SoftBank pour $1 billion into SB Energy for Stargate

OpenAI and SoftBank Group are each investing $500 million in SB Energy, the companies announced on January 9, 2026, channeling a combined $1 billion into the SoftBank-owned firm as it becomes a central development and execution partner for data center campuses under the Stargate program.

The deal goes beyond equity. OpenAI has signed a 1.2 GW data center lease and selected SB Energy to build and operate its previously announced data center site in Milam County, Texas. SB Energy is also becoming a major customer of OpenAI, using its APIs and deploying ChatGPT for its employees. And SB Energy has separately secured $800 million in Redeemable Preferred Equity from Ares to fund its growth.

The announcement, made from Redwood City, California, positions SB Energy as a key execution arm for what the companies describe as next-generation AI and energy infrastructure in the United States. It builds on the $500 billion Stargate commitment announced in January at the White House — an initiative that has since become the benchmark for how much capital the AI industry believes it must deploy to satisfy demand for compute.

What the money buys

The $1 billion in combined equity from OpenAI and SoftBank Group supports a specific role: SB Energy's growth as a leading development and execution partner for data center campuses and the energy infrastructure that powers them. That framing matters. The bottleneck for AI expansion is increasingly not chips or models but the ability to stand up large, power-hungry facilities quickly — and to secure the electricity they need.

SB Energy is currently developing several multi-gigawatt data center campuses, according to the announcement, with initial facilities already under construction and expected to enter service starting in 2026. That timeline puts the company among the nearer-term capacity additions to the US AI buildout, at a moment when hyperscalers and AI labs are competing for the same scarce grid connections and construction crews.

The centerpiece of the partnership is the Milam County site in Texas. OpenAI had previously announced the location among five new Stargate sites; Thursday's announcement names SB Energy as the builder and operator, with a 1.2 GW lease attached. For context on scale, 1.2 gigawatts is roughly the output of a large nuclear plant, dedicated to a single AI campus.

OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman framed the partnership as a combination of complementary strengths. "Partnering with SB Energy brings together their strength in data center infrastructure and energy development and OpenAI's deep domain expertise in data center engineering," Brockman said. "The result is a fast, reliable way to scale compute through large, highly optimized AI data centers."

SB Energy's leadership cast the deal in strategic and national terms. "SB Energy's strategic partnership with OpenAI accelerates our delivery of advanced AI data center campuses and associated energy infrastructure at the scale required to advance Stargate and secure America's AI future," said Rich Hossfeld, co-CEO of SB Energy. "We are grateful for our longstanding sponsor SoftBank Group and new partner OpenAI for their investment in our platform, our team, and our long-term vision."

A new model for building AI data centers

Alongside the equity and the lease, the three companies have formed what they call a non-exclusive preferred partnership to develop a new model for data center construction. The structure pairs OpenAI's first-party data center design with SB Energy's record on speed, cost discipline, and integrated energy delivery, with the stated goal of delivering purpose-built AI infrastructure at scale.

The "integrated energy delivery" component signals the core thesis. SB Energy, true to its name, brings generation and grid expertise alongside construction capability — a combination the industry treats as increasingly essential, because AI campuses of this size cannot simply plug into existing grids without new power supply behind them.

The companies committed to community investment as part of each project: well-paying jobs, workforce development, and grid modernization intended to produce durable economic growth for partner communities.

In Milam County specifically, OpenAI and SB Energy say the data center will create thousands of construction jobs. The companies also said they designed the facility to minimize water usage — a pointed concession to the local criticism that has followed data center projects in water-stressed regions. They plan to build new generation to support the site's energy needs and, in their words, protect Texas ratepayers.

That last commitment addresses a live policy fight. Large industrial loads entering ERCOT, Texas's grid, have raised questions about who pays for transmission upgrades and new generation, and developers have responded by promising to bring their own power rather than draw from the existing supply. The Milam County plan follows that pattern.

Why it matters

The transaction tightens an already close alliance between OpenAI and SoftBank Group, the two principal architects of Stargate, and gives the program a dedicated builder with energy development in-house. By taking equity in SB Energy, OpenAI moves further down the stack — from renting capacity to co-owning the execution capability that delivers it.

SB Energy's dual role is also notable: it will build AI infrastructure for OpenAI while simultaneously becoming a major OpenAI customer, adopting the company's APIs across its operations and rolling out ChatGPT to employees. That kind of reciprocal commercial relationship is becoming a familiar feature of the AI infrastructure market, where capital, compute, and software increasingly flow between the same small set of counterparties.

The $800 million preferred equity commitment from Ares, disclosed alongside the OpenAI and SoftBank investments, adds private credit to the capital mix funding the expansion — total new capital announced in the transaction exceeding $1.8 billion.

With initial SB Energy facilities slated to enter service starting in 2026, the first test of the partnership will come quickly: whether the combined OpenAI design and SB Energy execution model can deliver gigawatt-scale capacity on the timeline Stargate's $500 billion ambition requires.