Immersion-cooled AI data-center operator Firmus Technologies has kicked off the roadshow for a US$5 billion (A$7 billion) listing on the Australian Securities Exchange, aiming for a valuation of A$20-30 billion in what would be the country's largest technology float. Bookrunners Bank of America, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley and Morgans are guiding investors to an October pricing window as Nvidia and Blackstone-anchored capex targets crystallize.
Project Southgate At Scale
The IPO underwrites Project Southgate, Firmus' partnership with NVIDIA and CDC Data Centres for 1.6 gigawatts of Australian AI compute by 2028. That includes roughly 36,800 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs at a Tasmanian northern site and 18,500 at a Melbourne campus, plus a 360 MW Batam, Indonesia campus with DayOne holding up to 170,000 accelerators. OpenAI has become anchor tenant on two Malaysian AI factory sites, according to term sheets shown to institutional buyers.
Nvidia And Blackstone Underwrite The Capex
Firmus already contracted more than 900 megawatts across its customers before the roadshow, and secured a US$10 billion debt facility from Blackstone in February 2026. Nvidia holds a strategic equity position and has ring-fenced GB300 allocation. Founders Oliver Curtis and Tim Rosenfield told investors the initial A$4.5 billion capital raise phases into a potential A$73.3 billion full-scale rollout by 2030, positioning Firmus as a Southern Hemisphere hyperscale peer to NVIDIA's broader 2 GW Australia buildout.
Australia's AI Data-Center Moment
The float lands in an ASX window already hungry for AI-infrastructure paper after data-center peer NextDC's re-rating this year. It also arrives days after Oracle invoked force majeure on Project Jupiter, an event that has bidders scrutinizing anchor-tenant credit tighter than ever. Firmus is countering with signed offtake, Nvidia's stamp, and a Blackstone term loan already funded to plants under construction. Sydney bankers say demand from Australian super funds, Middle East sovereigns and US crossover investors has been strong in early meetings.
Reporting based on coverage from Bloomberg, StartupFortune, Reuters, ABC News and Crypto Briefing.