Former Energy Secretary Rick Perry’s Fermi upsizes US IPO, aims to raise US$715 million

U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry attends a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington on July 18, 2017. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Fermi is aiming to raise $715 million in its upsized U.S. initial public offering, the data center real estate investment trust said on Monday, as it aims to leverage burgeoning demand for energy infrastructure required to support AI buildouts.

Co-founded by former U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the company is aiming to sell 32.5 million shares priced between US$18 and US$22 apiece, compared with its previous target of 25 million shares.

The outsized demand for energy supply stems from efforts to scale large language models by companies such as Anthropic and ChatGPT-parent OpenAI, which has been signing deals worth hundreds of billions of dollars with Oracle ORCL.N, SoftBank and CoreWeave CRWV.O.

Fermi’s upsized offering also indicates pent-up investor appetite for companies at the heart of the AI race, as the vast majority of leaders in the space continue to stay private.

Nvidia-backed NVDA.O AI cloud provider CoreWeave’s shares have more than tripled their IPO price since their debut in March.

Fermi is aiming to build the world’s largest energy and data complex, powered by nuclear, natural gas and solar.

It has incurred a US$6.4 million loss since its inception through June 30 and does not expect to generate revenue within the next 12 months.

UBS, Evercore, Cantor and Mizuho are the joint lead book-running managers.

Fermi will list on the Nasdaq and the London Stock Exchange under the symbol “FRMI.”

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Reporting by Ateev Bhandari in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri