Nvidia to offer affordable AI computing to Australia's Firmus Technologies under new deal

Nvidia has signed a strategic partnership with Australian AI infrastructure company Firmus Technologies. According to a Reuters report, the US chip giant will help provide emerging artificial intelligence (AI) companies with more affordable access to computing power under this deal.

Under the agreement, Firmus will purchase Nvidia infrastructure and offer Nvidia-powered cloud services to customers, including AI-native companies.The partnership will allow Nvidia to earn revenue from hardware sales and a share of cloud service revenue generated through the collaboration. Firmus said the arrangement aims to make AI infrastructure more accessible to smaller companies developing AI apps.

As part of the agreement, Firmus will deploy 170,000 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) between the first quarter of 2027 and early 2028. The GPU infrastructure will be located in Batam, Indonesia, according to the Reuters report.The Australian company said it expects to generate up to $30 billion in revenue during the first six years of the agreement, based on customer commitments.

What Firmus co-CEO Tim Rosenfield said about the Nvidia deal

Explaining the objective of the partnership, Tim Rosenfield, co-chief executive of Firmus Technologies, told Reuters, “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.

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.

” Nvidia is already an investor in Firmus Technologies, having participated in the company's previous fundraising rounds. In April, Firmus said it had raised $1.35 billion over the previous six months, giving it a post-money valuation of $5.5 billion. According to people familiar with the matter, the company has also appointed investment banks to work on a potential initial public offering (IPO). However, Rosenfield declined to comment on the company's IPO plans.The partnership comes as demand for AI infrastructure continues to increase, with companies seeking access to high-performance GPUs to build and deploy AI models.