SB Energy issues OpenAI warrants worth 5.5 billion dollars for data center lease

SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary, gave OpenAI warrants worth $3.6 billion in January 2024. In return, OpenAI agreed to rent space at a large data center campus in southern Ohio for twenty years. The campus will have a capacity of ten gigawatts.

By June 2024, the warrants had grown in value to $5.5 billion. This happened because SB Energy itself became more valuable, not because of anything OpenAI did.

SB Energy is planning to sell shares to the public, with a target value of five to seven billion dollars. After that sale, OpenAI will own a small percentage of the company, making it a shareholder as well as a tenant.