Nvidia (NVDA.US) plans to invest $3 billion to enter SB Energy: from selling chips to securing the OpenAI "electricity-park-computing power" chain

According to a report by The Information, Nvidia is in talks with SB Energy, a SoftBank subsidiary, and is considering an investment of up to $3 billion. SB Energy is developing a large-scale data center project in Ohio for OpenAI. If this deal materializes, it would signify more than just a financial investment—it would represent Nvidia's continued evolution from an AI chip supplier to a capital participant in AI infrastructure projects.

At this stage, the information remains at the "in talks" stage for an "up to $3 billion" investment; details such as the proportion of investment, the intended use of funds, project scale, power supply solutions, chip procurement constraints, and whether the project will be included in the "Stargate" system are yet to be disclosed. Analysts point out that Nvidia could be positioning itself ahead of the curve by investing in OpenAI’s data center developer, entering a critical segment that determines whether GPU orders can be fulfilled.

This is consistent with Nvidia’s moves around OpenAI in recent years. Their collaboration dates back to 2016. When OpenAI announced the “Stargate” initiative in 2025, it specifically mentioned its deep relationship with Nvidia since 2016. In January 2025, "Stargate" announced intentions to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure across the U.S. over the next four years, with SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX as initial equity investors; SoftBank would handle financing, OpenAI would be responsible for operations, while Nvidia, together with Arm, Microsoft, and Oracle, is listed as a key technology partner. At this point, Nvidia has moved beyond being simply an equipment supplier, entering the core group for computing system design, deployment, and operational collaboration.

The capitalization of this relationship came with the memorandum of understanding in September 2025. Nvidia and OpenAI announced their plan to deploy at least 10 gigawatts of Nvidia systems, corresponding to millions of GPUs. Nvidia is expected to invest in OpenAI incrementally with the deployment of each gigawatt system, up to a maximum of $100 billion, with the first gigawatt goal to be launched in the second half of 2026 on the Vera Rubin platform. Additionally, the announcement stated that OpenAI would make Nvidia its priority strategic computing and network partner in the expansion of its AI factories. In other words, Nvidia seeks to create a closed loop of "investment supporting infrastructure construction— infrastructure driving GPU deployment— models and software in turn optimizing hardware development."

The potential investment in the SB Energy project can thus be seen as an extension of this closed loop further upstream. The bottleneck in large model training and inference competition is no longer just chip supply, but also land, grid connection, power equipment, cooling systems, campus construction, and project financing. For Nvidia, even with continuous improvements in GPU performance, if data centers can't secure stable power supplies and construction timelines are hindered by financing or regulatory approvals, massive orders will be difficult to convert into revenue as planned. Investing in developers like SB Energy allows Nvidia to secure deployment scenarios earlier and reduce the risk that customer expansion is constrained by electricity or data center availability.

SoftBank also plays a distinctive role in this process. As the financial lead of "Stargate," SoftBank needs to break down large-scale computing commitments into specific, financeable, buildable, and grid-connectable projects. Should Nvidia take equity in energy or campus platforms, it would not only bring anchor industrial capital into these projects, but also increase the confidence of financial institutions in follow-up equipment procurement and long-term leases. On August 10th, Nvidia announced the creation of an independent computing power financing platform in partnership with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs, and KKR, intending to mobilize over $500 billion in third-party capital. This shows its strategy has shifted from “selling high-value hardware” to “driving the entire AI factory as an investable asset.”

However, this model also carries risks. First, Nvidia’s investment in key customers and their infrastructure chains may raise concerns in the market about a cyclical growth loop fueled by “capital investments feeding back into chip orders.” Second, 10-gigawatt-class projects are highly sensitive to grid, transformer, construction capacity, and financing cost issues, and timelines might be delayed. Third, OpenAI is not betting solely on Nvidia and will continue to diversify hardware and cloud partnerships to balance supply risks in the future. Fourth, regulators may pay closer attention to deepening links among chip giants, model companies, cloud platforms, and energy assets.

Therefore, the most noteworthy aspect of the rumored $3 billion investment in SB Energy is not the amount itself, but whether Nvidia is expanding its competitive edge to encompass “power and data center delivery capabilities.”