OpenAI will be a foundational customer of two AI Factory data centres Australian company Firmus is developing.
Key Takeaways
- OpenAI has struck a deal to buy compute capacity from two Malaysian data centres being built by Australian company Firmus.
- Firmus is a fast-growing data centre company expected to list on the ASX this year at around $15 billion.
- It calls its facilities “AI Factories” because they are constructed from the ground up to cater to AI companies in need of powerful chips and ample energy.
- Firmus operates AI Factories in Australia and Singapore, with more under development in these countries as well as in Indonesia and Malaysia.
- OpenAI previously signed an MOU with ASX-listed NextDC for a $7 billion campus in Western Sydney, but the frontier lab has yet to make any formal commitment.
Key Background
Founded by Oliver Curtis and Tim Rosenfield, Firmus has rocketed almost out of nowhere to become Australia’s third largest data centre company by valuation.
It has raised US$2.5 billion ($3.5 billion) so far this year. Most of that came from a massive round announced last month, with investors including Nvidia, Blackstone, Coatue and Jane Street tipping US$2 billon ($2.78 billion) into the company at a US$10.5 billion ($14.5 billion) valuation.
Only Canberra Data Centres ($18.5 billion) and AirTrunk ($23.5 billion) were last valued higher.
Firmus currently operates two relatively small data centres, one in Australia and one in Singapore. But it has raised all that cash off the promise of the projects under development. They include a 360 MW campus in Indonesia and the two AI Factories in Malaysia that OpenAI just became a customer of. Its flagship facility is Tasmania’s Project Southgate, which it hopes to ramp up to 1.6GW with help from CDC.
Firmus’ business model is to secure enormous amounts of power and truckloads of Nvidia GPUs to generate capacity for companies like OpenAI that are eager to cinch as much compute as possible.
That makes it different from the likes of NextDC, which operates a spectrum of facilities ranging from small centre with under 5MW of capacity all the way up to a proposed 600MW-plus campus. It is similar to AirTrunk in that it aims squarely at “hyperscaler” customers, though unlike AirTrunk it supplies customers with access to Nvidia chips rather than requiring them to bring their own.
Crucial Quote
“This multi-year partnership marks the moment Asia-Pacific becomes a producer of intelligence, not just a consumer of it,” said Firmus co-founder and CEO Tim Rosenfield.
OpenAI VP of Compute Strategy Sachin Katti said: “We’re excited to work with Firmus as we expand our global compute capacity. These new data centers in Malaysia will help us serve growing demand for OpenAI’s products across the region and around the world. We look forward to bringing this capacity online together.”
Big Number
900 MW. That’s how much capacity Firmus has contracted out to customers. To put that in perspective, Australia’s current data centre capacity is estimated to be around 1.5 GW.
Global View
The move is part of OpenAI’s ongoing work to secure as much compute power as it can. The startup, which will reportedly list at a valuation over US$1 trillion, in August announced it had signed a 20-year lease for 8GW of capacity in Ohio. That followed a July 3.2GW deal in Georgia.
OpenAI previously signed a deal with the United Arab Emirates for “Stargate UAE,” a project that will see 200MW go live this year ahead of a target 1GW of capacity. It has explored similar deals in Norway, the UK, Argentina and with Australia’s NextDC, but has either not committed or pulled back from the deals.
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