Nvidia is reportedly in talks to invest up to $3 billion in SB Energy, the SoftBank Group-backed energy and infrastructure company developing a massive planned data center campus in Ohio for OpenAI.
The potential investment would be part of broader negotiations involving Nvidia, OpenAI and SB Energy over approximately $100 billion in credit support for the Ohio project, according to The Information.
No transaction has been finalized, and Reuters said it could not independently verify the report. Nvidia and SB Energy did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside regular business hours.
Under one structure being discussed, Nvidia could invest approximately half of the proposed $3 billion when the Ohio data center agreement is signed.
The remaining approximately $1.5 billion could be invested as part of a planned initial public offering by SB Energy.
SB Energy is reportedly targeting an IPO as soon as September 2026 and could seek to raise at least $5 billion through the offering.
The discussions would potentially deepen Nvidia’s financial involvement in the enormous infrastructure buildout required to support OpenAI’s next generation of artificial intelligence computing capacity.
SB Energy develops large-scale energy and data center infrastructure and is also backed by OpenAI.
Founded in 2019, the company is developing multiple data center campuses intended to accommodate rapidly increasing electricity and computing requirements associated with AI workloads.
The Ohio project represents one of the most significant potential deployments within that strategy.
Nvidia’s role could extend considerably beyond supplying GPUs and other computing hardware.
The reported discussions suggest the chipmaker may also provide substantial financial support to help developers secure the capital required to construct data center campuses capable of housing increasingly large AI clusters.
The proposed $3 billion equity investment is being discussed alongside approximately $100 billion of potential credit support involving the Ohio campus.
That financing structure remains under negotiation.
The Wall Street Journal separately reported that Nvidia has revised the amount of support it is considering for the OpenAI-related Ohio project.
Nvidia is now expected to initially guarantee less than $120 billion, compared with approximately $250 billion that had previously been discussed.
Even at the lower level, the financing illustrates the extraordinary amounts of capital increasingly associated with AI infrastructure.
Building large-scale AI data centers requires not only computing systems but also power generation and transmission capacity, cooling infrastructure, land, networking equipment and extensive construction.
The possibility of Nvidia investing directly in SB Energy would therefore represent another step toward greater vertical involvement by the chipmaker in the infrastructure supporting demand for its processors.
It could also give SB Energy additional capital and strategic backing as the company prepares for a potential public listing and expands its portfolio of AI-focused energy and data center projects.
For OpenAI, the proposed Ohio campus would provide additional infrastructure as increasingly powerful AI models require larger amounts of computing capacity.
However, discussions surrounding both Nvidia’s investment and the broader financing package remain ongoing, and there is no guarantee that the proposed transactions will be completed on the terms currently being considered.
