SB Energy, a data centre provider that is yet to complete a project, has slowed the timeline for its initial public offering (IPO) due to investor fears around the AI boom slowing down according to reporting by the New York Times and Financial Times.
SB Energy is a subsidiary of Japanese investment company SoftBank with additional financial backing from AI giants Nvidia and OpenAI. It is aiming to make its public debut at a $50 billion valuation and previously planned to go public this month, according to the NYT.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper reported that this timeline has been delayed after bankers managing the deal struggled to find enough buyers of its stock at the price ranges it is targeting.
The FT, citing people familiar with the matter, added that it still intends to IPO and is assessing market conditions.
Just hours before this news was broken on Monday, SB Energy said in filings that Nvidia had doubled its investment in the firm, purchasing $1.5 billion worth of shares at a 10 per cent discount to their eventual listing price.
The data centre provider is the second company in a week to delay a listing over concerns around a slowdown in the AI sector. Last Wednesday, nuclear energy company Holtec International delayed its stock market debut by at least three months.
The company hoped to supply energy to data centres, but chief executive Kris Singh said it had faced a “perfect storm” of adverse “market sentiment” around the projects.
The FT reported that recent pledges by OpenAI and Anthropic to slow down the development of their frontier models in the face of security concerns are the driving force behind weakening investor demand.
Training is highly compute intensive and longer development cycles may mean lower demand for compute, reducing the need for AI-focused data centres.
Alongside this, political backlash to data centre expansion is growing.
$18 billion of debt linked to a data centre complex leased by technology giant Oracle slid into stressed territory last week. The New Mexico site faced fierce local opposition suffered several failures to secure planning permission to connect it to energy generating equipment.
Across the Atlantic, the European Commission proposed Monday that large data centres in the bloc be required to disclose their water and energy efficiency in order to ensure grid and price stability for local residents.
Despite market concerns, some AI-focused companies are continuing to pursue public offerings. UK-based AI data centre developer Nscale filed for an IPO on the New York Stock Exchange on Monday with a target valuation of up to $35 billion, according to the FT. The company reported a net loss of $1.02 billion across the six months to 30 June 2026 against combined revenue of $140.6 million.
