The plan
Firmus Technologies, an Australian developer of AI data centres backed by Nvidia, is seeking to raise as much as US$5bn in an initial public offering on the Australian Securities Exchange, Bloomberg reported on 14 September. The Australian Financial Review put the figure at up to A$7bn, Reuters reported, which is roughly the same amount at current exchange rates.
The listing is targeted for the end of October. Firmus declined a Reuters request for comment, and details of the offering, including its size and timing, could change while talks continue.
How fast the valuation moved
Firmus raised US$2bn in equity in August at a post-money valuation above US$10.5bn, from investors including Nvidia, Coatue Management, funds managed by Blackstone and Jane Street, according to Reuters. That round came four months after a US$505m raise in April, which valued the company at US$5.5bn.
Investor meetings are under way and Australian roadshows are expected to follow, Crypto Briefing reported. No pricing, listing date or free float has been announced, according to The Next Web.
What investors would be buying
Firmus builds liquid-cooled facilities for AI workloads. Its flagship is Project Southgate, which targets 1.6 gigawatts of AI computing capacity across Australia. Blackstone led a debt facility for the company earlier this year, and The Next Web reported that OpenAI signed a multi-year contract for capacity at two Malaysian sites, taking Firmus past 900 megawatts of contracted capacity.
Firmus was also one of eight Australian operators Nvidia signed this month for AI factory projects targeting up to 2 gigawatts by 2027, as Aivio News reported.
Why the timing matters
The float would arrive in a busy window for AI listings. Anthropic is aiming for an October listing on Nasdaq, while calls from Anthropic and OpenAI’s leaders to slow frontier development have unsettled AI-linked stocks. A data centre company’s revenue depends on its customers continuing to buy capacity at the pace they have promised, which is exactly what that debate puts in question.
What to watch
The prospectus, which would have to disclose Firmus’s contracted revenue, how much of its capacity is built rather than planned, and how concentrated its customer base is. Whether the raise stays at the top of the reported range will also show how much appetite remains for AI infrastructure paper.
