Overview
- Firmus closed a $2 billion strategic equity round that included Nvidia and Coatue as returning backers and new investment from Blackstone-managed funds and Jane Street, lifting its post-money valuation above $10.5 billion.
- The capital is earmarked to speed Project Southgate, a program that targets about 1.6 gigawatts of AI compute across five Australian sites by 2028 and has a first-phase 150 MW Melbourne build planned to host roughly 18,500 Nvidia GB300 GPUs.
- Firmus builds modular 'AI Factory' campuses around Nvidia’s DSX reference architecture and its own HyperCube hardware, using high-density liquid cooling and grid-aware software and saying it manufactures HyperCube units in Australia.
- The company pairs large equity with heavy borrowing—reportedly a roughly $10 billion debt facility—which shifts long-term utilization and refinancing risk onto Firmus while suppliers such as Nvidia get paid when hardware ships.
- Investors are treating AI factories like infrastructure assets, a shift that could speed regional sovereign compute and local manufacturing but also concentrates operational risk on operators and creates new stresses on local power systems and jobs.