WORLD
OpenAI, SoftBank to put $1bn in SB Energy to expand data centre, power ventures
- IBJ Bureau
- Jan 10, 2026
OpenAI and SoftBank Group will invest $500 million each in SB Energy to expand data centre and power infrastructure for their Stargate initiative, SB Energy has said.
SB Energy, a SoftBank-owned company, will build and operate OpenAI’s previously-announced 1.2-gw data centre site in Milam County, Texas.
SB Energy will also become a customer of OpenAI, using its application programming interfaces (APIs) and deploying ChatGPT for employees.
Stargate is a $500-billion, multi-year initiative to build AI data centres for training and inference, backed by major investors, including Oracle. US President Donald Trump has backed the initiative when the companies had announced the plan in January 2025.
Tech companies are investing directly in power infrastructure, as energy access becomes a critical constraint on AI expansion, with the push for larger and more numerous data centres driving electricity demand higher.
SB Energy is developing several data centre campuses, with initial facilities expected to begin service this year.
The partnership “accelerates our delivery of advanced AI data centre campuses and associated energy infrastructure at the scale required to advance Stargate and secure America’s AI future,” SB Energy Co-CEO Rich Hossfeld has said.
The data centre construction boom has also prompted major players, including Meta Platforms, to allocate unprecedented sums to infrastructure projects that require massive investments in chips, power, cooling and servers.
Report By
View Reporter News