Firmus pulls its ASX float as Nebius signs for a Rotterdam AI campus and Sesterce plans €10bn in Finland

The week in 30 seconds

• Asia Pacific: Firmus cancelled its ASX float on 9 October after investors baulked at a valuation of up to A$43.7bn, and will seek private capital instead.
• Europe: Nebius signed a letter of intent as first customer of Volt's planned Rotterdam AI campus, a first phase put at about €7bn, while Sesterce plans more than €10bn for a 600MW campus in Finland.
• North America: FERC rejected the core of PJM's plan for connecting large loads, as San Francisco, Oakland and Shelby County, Tennessee moved to pause new data centres.

The headline story

Australia's Firmus was meant to be the year's landmark neocloud listing. On 9 October its float was cancelled after investors refused to pay a price that would have valued it at up to A$43.7bn, The Nightly reported. The plan had been to raise US$5bn at A$11 a share, and media reports the day before pointed to a cut in price and size. The board said it will pursue private capital and consider other public and private options. Forbes Australia reported that existing backers such as Nvidia are the likely first call.

The money has not dried up, but it is choosier. In the same week Nebius signed up as first customer of Volt's Rotterdam AI campus, and Sesterce announced a Finnish campus backed by a signed anchor tenant. Projects with a named customer and secured power are still being funded. Public investors are asking harder questions of capacity that is contracted but not yet built.

Talent signal: neocloud boards now need CFOs and capital markets leaders who can raise private and structured finance quickly, and delivery heads who can show contracted capacity turning into live megawatts. Australia and Southeast Asia will feel this first.

AI infrastructure watch

The GPU and AI factory moves of the week, and the leadership they need. More on our AI infrastructure page.

Microsoft unveils its Maia 300 chip for multi-gigawatt deployment

Microsoft's third custom AI chip runs 96 to a rack at about 167kW, and the company plans to deploy potentially more than a million of them next year, Reuters reported (Spokesman-Review, via Reuters).

Talent signal: high-density electrical and liquid cooling leaders for hyperscaler fleets built around in-house silicon.

Nvidia opens its Vera Rubin rack designs to OCP

At the OCP Global Summit, Nvidia contributed its Vera Rubin rack and compute tray designs, with a specification supporting racks of up to 250kW (Nvidia).

Talent signal: design and engineering directors who can take 250kW racks from reference design to live halls.

Anthropic reportedly signs a multiyear cloud deal with IREN

The Information reported an unannounced deal between Anthropic and IREN, with no value or capacity disclosed and neither company confirming it (Dataconomy).

Talent signal: former bitcoin miners hosting AI labs need hyperscale operations and customer delivery leaders.

The White House gathers $2.4bn of compute pledges for science

At an 8 October summit, 11 partners pledged $2.4bn of AI tools and compute credits to the Genesis Mission, led by Nvidia's $1bn (FedScoop). Crusoe pledged $50m of credits over three years (Crusoe).

Talent signal: public sector and research partnership leaders at neoclouds and AI labs.

North America

FERC rejects the core of PJM's large-load plan

On 9 October the regulator turned down PJM's proposed interim service that would have let large loads connect without matching new capacity, while approving its large-load definition and registry (Utility Dive).

Talent signal: power strategy and regulatory affairs leaders who can secure capacity in PJM without a fast track.

Local pauses spread from California to Tennessee

San Francisco and Oakland passed 45-day pauses on new data centres (SFist). Memphis postponed its moratorium vote to 20 October, and Shelby County's commission advanced its own moratorium at first reading, by 5 votes to 4 (Action News 5).

Talent signal: policy, permitting and community engagement leaders, now a board-level hire in contested markets.

ServerDomes Global breaks ground on a $15bn campus near El Paso

Hudspeth County confirmed the $15bn data centre with on-site power (KFOX), which Baxtel reports is planned at 350MW, starting with 80MW (Baxtel).

Talent signal: behind-the-meter power and construction leadership in West Texas.

Oxide Computer raises $445m to scale manufacturing

The on-premises rack-scale computer maker's Series D was led by Eclipse, with AMD Ventures and Atreides Management joining (Pulse 2.0).

Talent signal: manufacturing, supply chain and enterprise sales leaders for on-premises cloud hardware.

Europe

Nebius signs for Volt's Rotterdam AI campus

Nebius signed a letter of intent to lease capacity at Volt's planned Port of Rotterdam campus, with a first phase put at about €7bn, up to 200MW for Nebius according to De Telegraaf, and first capacity expected in late 2029 or early 2030 (Techzine).

Talent signal: project finance, grid and construction leadership in the Netherlands, where power is the scarcest input.

Sesterce plans a €10bn AI campus at a former Finnish paper mill

The French developer plans 200MW at Kaipola in Jämsä, rising to 600MW, with an anchor customer it has not named and an aim of more than 1GW in Finland (TNW). The site sale and many permits are still pending, Yle reported (Yle).

Talent signal: a Finland country lead, a programme director and permitting specialists.

SWI Group raises €800m for data centre and AI compute capacity

The Amsterdam-listed group raised the money from institutional investors for capacity, power and its pipeline in Europe and the US (BeBeez).

Talent signal: power development and AI hosting leaders on both sides of the Atlantic.

Google tells Finland it has halted work

Google sent the regulator notice on 11 October that it had stopped work at its Muhos and Kajaani sites, and said it had acted on its own reading of the law, Yle reported (Yle).

Talent signal: environmental compliance leadership for Nordic hyperscale builds.

Middle East & GCC

HUMAIN issues two more work orders to MIS

Al Moammar Information Systems received work orders 3 and 4 under its HUMAIN AI data centre agreement, each worth more than 135% of its 2025 revenue, with 16 months to deliver (Argaam).

Talent signal: site leadership, commissioning and project controls in Saudi Arabia, needed now.

Hassan Allam and Sterling and Wilson win a HUMAIN and Center3 build in Riyadh

The joint venture won the first phase of a Riyadh data centre for HUMAIN and stc's Center3, with 16.2MW of IT load rising to 50MW in phase two, at an estimated SR750m according to MEED (Enterprise AM).

Talent signal: MEP and commissioning leaders in Riyadh.

The UAE publishes a report on AI, water and energy

The report looks at water use across the AI value chain and calls for a global declaration on efficient water use in AI at December's UN Water Conference in Abu Dhabi (UAE MOFA).

Talent signal: sustainability and water strategy leaders for Gulf operators.

Asia Pacific

NTT Data reportedly nears a 500MW Osaka deal with Anthropic

Nikkei reported, via Reuters, that NTT Data is in final talks to build Anthropic's first Japan data centre, with up to 500MW and construction costs of up to ¥1tn; neither company confirmed it (MarketScreener, via Reuters; W.Media).

Talent signal: Japan programme directors and on-site power specialists.

ReNew signs for a 750MW green data centre park in Maharashtra

ReNew signed a ₹70,000 crore MoU with the state government for a park in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region, developed in phases from 2028 (W.Media).

Talent signal: a renewable energy company will need data centre delivery and operations leaders in Mumbai.

Princeton Digital Group sells its Indonesian enterprise data centres

PDG agreed to sell five facilities to Sinar Mas-backed SM+ for an undisclosed price, keeping its 400MW hyperscale portfolio in the country (W.Media).

Talent signal: integration and regional operations leaders at Indonesia's consolidating enterprise operators.

Singapore passes its Digital Infrastructure Bill

The law brings data centres of 3MW and above into a licensing regime, with security, resilience and incident reporting duties for major sites of 10MW or more (W.Media).

Talent signal: compliance, security and resilience leaders for Singapore operators.

New money

Funding rounds, financings, IPOs, M&A and investment pledges announced this week.

New capacity

Leadership moves

• Ibrahim Al Moammar, vice chairman, will lead Al Moammar Information Systems on an interim basis after CEO Dr Abdullah AlGhamdi leaves at the end of October (Enterprise AM). The change comes as the company's HUMAIN work orders move into delivery.

The T4X view

This was a week when investors and local councils decided more than ambition did. Firmus showed that public markets will not price unbuilt capacity at any figure, while Nebius and Sesterce showed that a named tenant still unlocks private money. The leaders in shortest supply are those who can turn a contracted megawatt into a live one while keeping regulators, councils and lenders on side.