Sources: Nvidia is in talks to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Firmus, which pulled its IPO earlier this month, citing market volatility

If you're investing in AI infrastructure companies, their funding rounds may now include chip vendors as equity holders.

Nvidia is reportedly in negotiations to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Firmus, an Australian AI cloud provider. This potential investment would make Nvidia both a supplier and a shareholder in Firmus, which is planning to deploy up to 170,000 Nvidia GPUs at a 360 MW AI factory campus in Batam, Indonesia. The talks occur shortly after Firmus postponed its planned Australian IPO in October 2026, citing market volatility and cooling investor interest in AI infrastructure. Firmus, previously a Bitcoin mining operation, has pivoted to build AI infrastructure using its proprietary HyperCube platform, built on Nvidia technology. The company has raised over $3 billion in equity in the past year, with recent rounds valuing it above $10.5 billion.

The strategic investment by Nvidia into Firmus signals a deepening trend of chip manufacturers integrating further into the AI infrastructure supply chain. By taking an equity stake, Nvidia can exert more influence over hardware deployment and potentially secure long-term demand for its GPUs, especially as Firmus's projected $25-$30 billion in cloud revenue from the Batam campus hinges on Nvidia hardware. This move also highlights the shift in capital towards private funding rounds for AI infrastructure, as evidenced by Firmus shelving its IPO due to public market sentiment.

For companies like Firmus, this investment could stabilize its financial position after the IPO postponement, but it also raises questions about vendor financing influencing demand. The narrative of former Bitcoin miners successfully pivoting to AI is reinforced, suggesting that established expertise in power procurement and high-density hardware deployment is transferable and valuable in the current AI compute landscape. Investors will be scrutinizing how much of Firmus's future revenue is truly market-driven versus vendor-supported.