At a glance
Nscale is two years old. It was valued at US$14.6 billion in March and is now seeking US$3.5 billion at US$30 billion, with about US$2 billion of that from NVIDIA.
Its contract book doubled to US$103 billion in a month, against US$33 million of revenue in 2025. Only Nebius and CoreWeave, both listed neoclouds, carry higher valuations.
Anthropic's US$45 billion agreement of 26 August runs six years and takes 460MW at Nscale's West Virginia campus, where 1.35GW is contracted to Microsoft.
Firmus began investor meetings on 8 September for an ASX float, on more than 900MW of customer commitments and a valuation above US$10.5 billion.
IREN, founded in Sydney and trading on Nasdaq, closed on 8 September worth US$18.5 billion. That is below Nscale's US$30 billion.
Bloomberg reported on 4 September that Nscale, a British neocloud, is seeking US$3.5 billion before a New York listing it may hold this month, at a valuation of US$30 billion. About US$2 billion of the raise comes from NVIDIA, which also supplies the company its chips. Nscale was founded in 2024 and was worth US$14.6 billion at its Series C in March.
Nscale is showing investors US$103 billion of signed customer contracts, a figure that doubled in a month. Anthropic agreed on 26 August to spend US$45 billion over six years, taking 460MW at a West Virginia campus where Nscale has 1.35GW contracted to Microsoft and says the site could eventually support more than 8GW. Against that book, Nscale reported US$33 million of revenue in 2025.
Three Australian neoclouds carry a disclosed valuation, and what New York pays for Nscale would give investors here a reference point for all three. Firmus builds AI factories across Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. It holds more than 900MW of customer commitments and began meeting institutions for an ASX float four days after the Nscale report. Sharon AI rents GPU capacity out of leased halls inside NEXTDC's Melbourne and Sydney sites. It has 212MW secured and trades on Nasdaq while it prepares an ASX listing. IREN owns the campuses it runs and is delivering about 0.3GW this year out of Childress, Texas. It was founded in Sydney in 2018 and listed on Nasdaq after the ASX declined it.
Nscale's backers have put the company at US$30 billion on US$33 million of revenue. The market puts IREN, on US$707 million of revenue, at US$18.5 billion. Buyers set IREN's price daily. Nscale's was agreed privately. Firmus is meeting investors against both.
Anthropic starts paying Nscale in late 2027
The chips for an AI data centre are ordered one to three years before the hall is energised, and the invoices start later still. An operator part-way through a six-year contract has two figures to report. Total contract value counts every dollar its customers have committed. Revenue counts what it has built, powered and billed. Contract value is enormous. Revenue is small. Both are accurate.
Nscale is asking investors to price its contract value. Firmus, Sharon AI and IREN sell the same way.
Megawatts, accelerators and where they sit
Company | Capacity contracted or targeted | Where it sits |
|---|---|---|
Nscale | About 194,000 Vera Rubin accelerators under contract, plus roughly 200,000 GB300 accelerators for Microsoft | Narvik in Norway, Barstow in Texas, Sines in Portugal, Loughton in England, and a West Virginia campus from late 2027 |
Firmus | More than 900MW of customer commitments at 8 September, against a 1.6GW target for 2028 | Seven AI factories across Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, two of them operating |
Sharon AI | 212MW secured, with more than 64,000 NVIDIA GPUs expected by mid-2027 | Leased halls inside NEXTDC's M3 and S3, plus a New Zealand build |
IREN | About 0.3GW of IT capacity in 2026 and 0.8GW in 2027 | Childress in Texas for Microsoft, with Sweetwater in Texas and Bundey in South Australia behind it |
Source: company releases of 6 August, 27 August and 8 September 2026, and Bloomberg reporting of 4 September 2026.
Firmus makes its own cooling module, the HyperCube. Benmax builds it at a Queanbeyan plant in southern New South Wales, and Firmus agreed in August to buy that business for A$300 million. Commitments passed 900MW on 8 September, up from 155MW in April, with OpenAI added as anchor customer for two Malaysian sites at an undisclosed value. Firmus runs Melbourne and Singapore inside other operators' data centres in Australia and Asia. Its first owned hall opens at Launceston in 2027.
Sharon AI's second-quarter result put secured capacity at 212MW and total contract value at US$8.8 billion as at 6 August, against US$1.9 million of revenue for the quarter.
IREN's Childress capacity runs under the Microsoft contract, and its Australian project is Bundey in South Australia, an 800MW campus.
Nebius and CoreWeave are worth more than Nscale
Company | Valuation | How the number was set |
|---|---|---|
Nebius | About US$62 billion | Nasdaq price, 4 September |
CoreWeave | About US$49 billion | Nasdaq price, 4 September |
Crusoe Energy | US$30 billion | Series F of US$3 billion, closed 3 September |
Nscale | US$30 billion | Agreed with its lenders in a raise still being negotiated |
IREN | US$18.5 billion | Nasdaq close, 8 September |
Fluidstack | US$18 billion | US$1.5 billion round led by Jane Street, closed 5 September |
Lambda | US$12 billion or more | Pre-IPO round reported in talks on 24 August |
Firmus | Above US$10.5 billion | Agreed in its raise of 7 August |
Together AI | US$8.3 billion | Series C of US$800 million, closed 1 July |
Sharon AI | About US$2.1 billion | Nasdaq close, 8 September |
Source: Nasdaq closing prices of 4 and 8 September 2026, company announcements of 1 July, 7 August and 5 September 2026, and Bloomberg reporting of 24 August and 3 and 4 September 2026.
Crusoe Energy raised US$3 billion at the same US$30 billion on 3 September, in a round that has completed. Nscale is still negotiating.
IREN's shares finished 8 September at US$46.93. On 394 million shares that values the company at US$18.5 billion. The stock rose 5 per cent that day, after news that its 2GW Sweetwater hub had been conditionally admitted to the Texas grid operator's base-load process. IREN reported its 2026 financial year on 27 August: US$707 million of revenue, up 41 per cent, with US$128.8 million from AI cloud against US$16.4 million a year earlier.
Sharon AI's shares finished at US$57.63, valuing it at about US$2.1 billion across 35.8 million shares. It has promised further shares to this year's investors rather than cash. Full conversion would take the count to about 66.8 million, up roughly 90 per cent, and value the company near US$3.85 billion.
Firmus has no share price to read. The last valuation put on it is the above US$10.5 billion it disclosed when it raised US$2 billion in August from Blackstone, Coatue, NVIDIA and Jane Street.
Nscale, Firmus and IREN name their customers
Nscale names Anthropic and Microsoft, with the Microsoft agreements reported at about US$14 billion covering roughly 200,000 GB300 accelerators across the United States, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Norway. Firmus names OpenAI, NVIDIA and the inference platform Fireworks AI. IREN names Microsoft on a US$9.7 billion contract.
Sharon AI describes its two largest end-customer contracts as a US$1.32 billion agreement with a global AI lab and a US$950 million agreement with an Asia-Pacific technology company. Several large Australian contracts describe the buyer instead of naming it. The Canberra operator CDC calls the buyer on its 555MW agreement this year a United States investment-grade customer. Firmus calls the buyer of about 18,400 GB300 accelerators at its Melbourne cluster a global hyperscale customer.
IREN raised US$3.6 billion against the Microsoft contract at 6.0 per cent. A separate US$2.8 billion covers customers that are not investment grade, and the US$2.4 billion Blue Owl and PIMCO tranche of that prices at 9.0 per cent. The gap is three percentage points on the same hardware.
NVIDIA supplies the chips, sits on the Firmus register, and is the counterparty on Sharon AI's US$4.9 billion six-year compute collaboration. It is also the largest single source of Nscale's pre-listing money, inside the US$500 billion of financing it has lined up across its customers.
What to watch
Nscale's pricing, if the listing proceeds this month, shows what buyers on an exchange pay for a US$103 billion contract book. A prospectus from Firmus would split the 900MW by customer, term and site and settle the escrow terms institutions are still arguing over. A Sharon AI prospectus would show which buildings sit behind the 212MW. IREN reports its first quarter of FY27 in November, against US$1 billion of revenue already running and US$4 billion contracted for 2026.