Australian AI infrastructure company Firmus Technologies has signed a multi-year agreement with OpenAI to provide dedicated AI compute capacity from two of its AI Factory sites in Malaysia, marking the company’s expansion into a fourth Asia-Pacific market.
The agreement makes OpenAI an anchor customer of Firmus and takes the company’s total contracted capacity across all customers to more than 900MW. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Firmus said its portfolio now spans seven AI factories across Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. Two sites are operational, in Australia and Singapore, while five are under development and targeting ready-for-service within the next 24 months.
The Malaysian sites will deploy NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale systems through the NVIDIA DSX AI Factory Platform, integrated with Firmus’s HyperCube infrastructure. HyperCube combines liquid cooling, mechanical systems and electrification into a prefabricated infrastructure system manufactured in regional New South Wales. Firmus said the approach is designed to integrate more of the AI factory supply chain and support faster deployment.
OpenAI vice president of Compute Strategy Sachin Katti said the Malaysian facilities would help the company expand its global compute capacity and meet growing demand for its products in the region and elsewhere.
New market anchor customer
The agreement gives Firmus a major AI compute customer as it expands beyond its existing Australian, Singaporean and Indonesian footprint.
The company has been building out its financing and infrastructure platform alongside its geographic expansion. Last month it announced a fully subscribed USD 2 billion strategic equity investment, with participation from existing investors Coatue and NVIDIA, and new investment from Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and other Blackstone vehicles and Jane Street.
The funding took Firmus’s total equity raised over the preceding 12 months to more than USD 3 billion and valued the company at more than USD 10.5 billion post-money.
Firmus has also been expanding its Australian operations. It recently agreed to acquire Benmax’s fabrication, design and projects businesses for AUD 300m, bringing those capabilities into its AI Factory platform.
In Australia, the company is developing AI factories in Tasmania and South Australia. Its Tasmanian pipeline includes projects at St Leonards, Bell Bay and Wesley Vale, while its South Australian plans include facilities at Tailem Bend and Stirling North.
Firmus said the Australian projects are part of a broader platform intended to integrate power, cooling, accelerated computing, networking, software and workload performance. Alongside the OpenAI agreement, Firmus said it plans to establish an Australian AI Access Program for eligible researchers and organisations applying AI to areas including science, education, agriculture, energy and resource efficiency, and climate resilience.