This article first appeared on GuruFocus .
SoftBank's ( SFTBY ) push to list SB Energy at a valuation of roughly $50 billion is facing a tougher investor test as uncertainty around OpenAI's IPO timeline raises questions about how much of the data-center developer's future growth depends on a single customer.
SB Energy is expected to seek between $5 billion and $7 billion in an IPO within the coming weeks.
The company has yet to bring a single data center online, but already carries roughly $439 billion of contracted backlog tied largely to 8.8 gigawatts of future capacity.
That scale makes the story compelling.
The problem is timing.
Roughly $357 billion of that contracted revenue is not expected to be recognized until 2034 or later, while SB Energy generated only $138.7 million of revenue during the first half of this year, primarily from legacy solar operations.It also posted a $551.6 million operating loss.OpenAI is central to the growth thesis.
The AI company is the primary tenant for SB Energy's largest pipeline projects, while Nvidia ( NASDAQ:NVDA ) has provided a $105 billion guarantee for the initial phase of an 8-gigawatt Ohio data-center campus.
Both OpenAI and Nvidia are expected to own stakes in the publicly listed company.
SB Energy has also warned that its near-term financial health and ability to finance projects depend heavily on OpenAI's continued performance.
Investors Takeaway
The core issue is not whether AI infrastructure demand exists. It is how much investors should pay today for revenue that may take years to materialize.
SB Energy estimates it needs more than $170 billion in capital spending to build its pipeline.
Analysts cited in the report estimate it may need another $7 billion of equity beyond IPO proceeds, in addition to substantial debt, just to maintain its typical 10% equity contribution to projects.
That leaves SoftBank trying to sell a high-growth infrastructure story before most of the infrastructure is operational.
A successful OpenAI IPO could have provided another valuation anchor for the broader ecosystem.
Without that, investors may scrutinize customer concentration, financing needs and execution risk more heavily.
The bull case remains the enormous backlog. The risk is that SB Energy must fund years of construction before that backlog turns into meaningful cash flow.
