Reuters: IPOX® Research Associate Lukas Muehlbauer Comments on SB Energy’s IPO and AI Infrastructure Demand

Reuters reports that SoftBank-backed SB Energy has filed for a U.S. IPO as growing investment in AI infrastructure continues to drive demand for data centers and power capacity. The company disclosed a 66.4% increase in first-half 2026 revenue to $138.7 million, alongside a widening net loss of $3.21 billion. Reuters previously reported that SB Energy could seek a valuation of more than $50 billion.

The filing highlights SB Energy’s significant exposure to the AI infrastructure buildout, including roughly $439 billion in backlog and 8.8 gigawatts of data center capacity contracted or under construction. Nvidia has committed to invest $1.5 billion in a private placement at the IPO price, while OpenAI and SoftBank are important customers and investors. The company currently has no operational data centers, making the conversion of contracted demand into future cash flow an important consideration for prospective investors.

IPOX® Associate Lukas Muehlbauer provided Reuters with analysis of the execution risks surrounding SB Energy’s long-term contracts and concentration in rapidly evolving AI markets:

“Investors have to be convinced that hundreds of billions of contracted demand can be turned into cash flow over the coming years,” said Muehlbauer.

“OpenAI's 20-year leases are reassuring from a contractual perspective, but they also stretch across an unusually long horizon for an industry evolving this quickly. Few people can say with much confidence what the AI landscape will look like even five or ten years from now,” Muehlbauer said.

Read the full article by Arasu Kannagi Basil and Prakhar Srivastava on Reuters: SoftBank-backed SB Energy files for US IPO as AI turbocharges infrastructure demand