Sharon AI funds its sovereign AI factory buildout across Australia and Asia-Pacific

At a glance

• Sharon AI (NASDAQ:SHAZ) announced an oversubscribed US$1.6 billion private placement on 17 June 2026, split between about US$900 million of equity and US$700 million of 4.75% Convertible Senior Notes due 2032.

• The raise is anchored by Situational Awareness L.P., the AI-focused fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, and by Oaktree Capital Management, which also led Sharon AI’s earlier raise.

• Proceeds fund Sharon AI’s six-year NVIDIA collaboration, including up to 40,000 Grace Blackwell GB300 GPUs, plus wider expansion across Australia and Asia-Pacific.

• Equity priced at US$68.73 a share, more than double the US$30 February Nasdaq listing. The notes convert at about US$99.66, a 45% premium.

• The money funds capacity that is mostly pre-sold: 102MW of the 132MW fleet is contracted, with more than 55,000 GPUs due by mid-2027.

What Sharon AI raised, and from whom

Sharon AI announced the financing on 17 June 2026, to close on or about 22 June. It has two legs: about US$900 million of common stock and pre-funded warrants, and US$700 million of 4.75% Convertible Senior Notes due 15 June 2032. The placement was oversubscribed.

The lead investors are Situational Awareness L.P. and funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management, alongside other institutional and strategic investors. Situational Awareness is the AI-focused fund founded by Leopold Aschenbrenner, the former OpenAI researcher who argues the real limit on advanced AI is physical: the power and infrastructure to run the compute, not the algorithms. Its holdings include power generators and infrastructure names such as Vistra, Constellation Energy and CoreWeave. A fund built on that thesis is now backing an Australian-soil neocloud, where power and grid access, more than capital, set the pace of the buildout.

The structure: equity at a doubled price, debt struck higher

The equity was issued at US$68.73 a share, the at-the-market price under Nasdaq rules. That is more than double the US$30 at which SHAZ listed in February, and above where the stock traded through May. The notes convert at about US$99.66, a 45% premium, the level at which lenders would rather hold equity.

Source: Sharon AI announcement, 17 June 2026.

This is the investor leg our neocloud financing explainer flagged to watch. Neoclouds are the GPU-first tier competing with the hyperscalers in Australia for power, space and chips, and they fund GPU fleets far larger than their balance sheets through a mix of vendor credit, GPU-backed debt and outside capital.

Why the contracted share matters

The money funds Sharon AI’s NVIDIA collaboration: up to 40,000 GB300 GPUs in one of Australia’s larger AI factories, plus wider expansion across Australia and Asia-Pacific. Total capacity is 132MW, with 102MW already contracted and more than 55,000 GPUs due by mid-2027.

Sharon AI builds its capacity in Australia and increasingly sells it into Asia-Pacific. Its largest single contract, a US$1.25 billion agreement with the Indian provider ESDS, runs on about 8,200 B300 GPUs deployed in an Australian data centre, with revenue due from the third quarter. That makes Australia an exporter of sovereign AI compute, and it keeps the data under Australian law and certification even when the customer sits offshore.

That contracted share matters. At 102MW of 132MW, Sharon AI is funding a fleet that is roughly 77% pre-sold, so most of this capital sits behind demand that is already signed. Chief executive James Manning said demand for compute keeps outpacing supply, across AI-native, enterprise, government, research and hyperscale customers.

The revenue behind that book is high-margin. At the Q1 results in May, Manning put revenue at about US$15 million per megawatt, including storage, and called storage a sticky, high-margin layer: customer data stays on Sharon AI’s systems and pulls through renewals. On the 102MW contracted, that points to an annual revenue base near US$1.5 billion at full utilisation.

The anchors give the raise its weight. Aschenbrenner’s AI-infrastructure fund and the credit manager Oaktree led an oversubscribed book priced at more than double the float. The named anchors come onto Sharon AI's register as it heads to an ASX listing alongside Firmus, under a board now chaired by Andrew Penn. Shares rose sharply on the news, per Investing.com.