SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy filed its S-1, and the numbers expose the AI financing loop in its purest form yet. The company made $138 million in the first half of 2026 from selling power. Its data center division made $653,000. Its entire future revenue depends on two conditions: finishing data centers that won't come online before 2028, and OpenAI being able to pay for them. 99.4% of its capacity under construction is earmarked for a single customer.
The capital structure is the story. OpenAI and SoftBank each invested $500 million in January 2026. NVIDIA committed $3 billion in equity, plus a conditional $105 billion backstop that only triggers if the Ohio facility gets built and can't be leased or liquidated for that amount. NVIDIA owes nothing if construction never completes. SB Energy also granted OpenAI 4 million share warrants and a board seat at a valuation of roughly $5.5 billion. The company has a $439 billion backlog, but projects only $1 billion of it converts within two years and $12 billion within four.
The original piece is worth reading in full because Ed Zitron doesn't stop at the S-1 summary. He works through the backlog projections year by year, traces SB Energy's corporate history from renewable energy seller to Google power supplier to OpenAI infrastructure vehicle, and connects it to the broader argument he has been building across multiple pieces: that AI infrastructure spending is a closed loop dressed up as a market. The S-1 is public. The analysis is the thing.
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