Data Center IPO Window Narrows: DayOne Pushes Ahead as SB Energy Delays

Singapore-based data center operator DayOne is pressing ahead with a US IPO as soon as November, targeting about $5 billion in proceeds at a roughly $20 billion valuation, Reuters reported on September 25, 2026, citing three people familiar with the matter — even as SoftBank-backed SB Energy has just delayed its own listing after investors balked at its valuation target. The two moves, in the same week, mark the clearest signal yet that the AI data center IPO wave is hitting real investor scrutiny rather than sailing through on demand narratives alone.

What is known

Per Reuters, DayOne — which spun out of China’s GDS Holdings in 2025 and is backed by Coatue and Hillhouse — plans to make its SEC filing public in mid-October and list in November, likely as a dual Nasdaq/Singapore Exchange offering. The company closed a $4.5 billion Series C round in June and operates across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong and beyond; our catalog currently tracks facilities under the DayOne Data Centers name in the region.

SB Energy’s situation illustrates the scrutiny DayOne is walking into. Reuters and Nikkei Asia both reported SB Energy — the SoftBank-backed developer of the data center campus OpenAI has leased in Ohio, with Nvidia providing a $105 billion guarantee on the lease — pushed its IPO from September to at least mid-to-late October. Nikkei put the sticking point at a roughly $50 billion valuation target investors weren’t willing to meet; Reuters cited talk of a figure closer to $60 billion. Both agree on the underlying reason: reliance on a single customer (OpenAI) for a campus that has not yet entered service.

Two analysts quoted by Reuters frame the divide investors are now applying across the sector. Ke Yan of Shenton Research put it directly: “The dividing line is whether demand is contracted and already energized, or only planned… Uncertainty is what hurts data-center models.” Neil Bear-Hetherington of CBRE’s Asia Pacific data center capital markets team stressed that contracted revenue from creditworthy customers is what actually services the debt behind these campuses. Switch, Vantage Data Centers and CyrusOne are all reported to be exploring or preparing IPOs of their own, per Reuters.

What it means for capacity buyers

None of this touches signed colocation contracts today. But it is a useful read on financing conditions for anyone benchmarking new capacity, particularly in Southeast Asia where DayOne is one of the region’s larger platforms alongside operators tracked in our colocation price index. Investors are now explicitly pricing the gap between “contracted and energized” MW and “planned” MW — the same distinction that determines whether a facility shows up as a firm quote or a roadmap slide when you request pricing through our quote form. Operators facing a costlier IPO or debt market have less room to underwrite speculative capacity ahead of demand, which over time should translate into firmer, not softer, colocation and GPU pricing — worth tracking against our GPU rental tracker and the financing deals we log on /investment/.

What is not yet known

Neither company has set a final price or date. Whether DayOne actually prices at $20 billion, and whether SB Energy comes back in October at a lower valuation or waits longer, remains open. Reuters also flagged a separate dispute involving Oracle and Blue Owl that could delay another US campus — a reminder that construction and financing risk are compounding across several large platforms at once, not isolated to one deal.