Australian AI infrastructure company Firmus Technologies has signed a strategic partnership with Nvidia Corp to provide emerging AI firms with access to computing power that would come from its AI factory in Batam to be co-developed with Singapore-based data center platform DayOne.
Under the eight-year partnership, Firmus will buy Nvidia chips and sell Nvidia-powered cloud services to “AI Native” customers in a deal that would earn it up to US$ 30 billion from offtake agreements during the first six years of the deal. Nvidia will earn product revenue and a share of cloud revenue.
At the core of the partnership is the integration of NVIDIA DSX™ – NVIDIA’s full-stack AI factory platform – with Firmus’ proprietary HyperCube platform, a liquid-cooled AI Factory architecture developed in Australia and co-designed to NVIDIA DSX blueprints, according to Firmus’ press release today.
The agreement covers up to 170,000 NVIDIA AI accelerators across Grace-Blackwell, Vera-Rubin, and Vera platforms through 2027 and 2028, positioning the 360 MW NVIDIA DSX AI Factory campus in Batam, Indonesia among the largest AI infrastructure developments in Asia-Pacific.
“We have worked to figure out how to close the gap between the cost benefits that the large guys have access to, which they do because they have great credit ratings, and the guys that are up and comers (AI natives),” Firmus co-chief executive Tim Rosenfield told Reuters.
AI-Natives are amongst the fastest growing and most innovative companies in the world, building on a foundation of AI to deliver the products and services of tomorrow, according to Firmus’ statement.
Firmus has appointed investment banks to prepare for a potential initial public offering on ASX, according to people familiar with the matter, as per Reuters. The IPO could value the company at up to US$12 billion. An initial June listing was however postponed but the firm declined to comment on its progress.
Rosenfeld said the decision to expand in Indonesia would not delay the company’s plans in Australia, where it planned to build AI factories in Tasmania, Victoria, NSW, Western Australia and the ACT.
DayOne, backed by American technology investment group Coatue Management and Japan’s SoftBank, is also considering an IPO. Last week, Reuters reported that Gulf investment giant MGX was considering buying the company which could value it at about US$20 billion.