Australian artificial intelligence infrastructure company Firmus Technologies has entered into a strategic partnership with US chipmaker Nvidia Corp to expand access to affordable computing power for emerging AI companies.
Under the agreement, announced on Monday, Firmus will purchase Nvidia’s AI infrastructure and offer Nvidia-powered cloud services to customers, particularly so-called “AI Native” firms. The arrangement is expected to generate revenue for Nvidia through product sales as well as a share of cloud service income.
As part of the partnership, Firmus will deploy approximately 170,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) between the first quarter of 2027 and early 2028. The infrastructure will be housed in Batam, Indonesia, forming a major AI computing hub in the region.
Firmus said the agreement is expected to generate as much as US$30 billion in revenue over its first six years, based on existing customer commitments.
The company said the partnership is designed to help smaller and fast-growing AI businesses gain access to advanced computing infrastructure that has traditionally been dominated by larger technology firms with stronger financial resources.
”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,” Firmus co-Chief Executive Tim Rosenfield told Reuters.
”This is actually a really material way to level the playing field a little bit to give the next a chance to compete with the big guys,” he added.
Nvidia is already an investor in Firmus Technologies, having participated in previous capital-raising rounds by the Australian-founded company.
In April, Firmus revealed that it had raised US$1.35 billion over the preceding six months, valuing the business at US$5.5 billion following the fundraising.
The company has also appointed investment banks to advise on a potential initial public offering (IPO), according to people familiar with the matter. However, Rosenfield declined to comment on the firm’s listing plans.
The partnership comes amid surging global demand for AI infrastructure, as companies race to secure the high-performance computing capacity needed to develop and deploy increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence models.
