OpenAI and SoftBank Co-invest $1 Billion

OpenAI and SoftBank Group announced a $1 billion co-investment into SB Energy on 9th January, to accelerate the buildout of AI infrastructure. 

SB Energy will construct and manage a 1-gigawatt data center facility in Milam County, Texas, which was initially announced in September. The investment is part of the broader Stargate initiative announced last January, which targets $500 billion in total capital deployment.

The partnership combines SoftBank and Ares Management's expertise in data center infrastructure with OpenAI's knowledge in data center engineering and computing infrastructure. SB Energy operates the data center, while OpenAI secures compute capacity for scaling its AI systems.

Previously, the Stargate initiative was presented as a multi-year deployment spanning the coming years. This co-investment commitment suggests both companies view immediate large-scale capacity as necessary to meet computational demand.