Firmus signs OpenAI as anchor customer, expands into Malaysia

Firmus has signed a multi-year strategic partnership with OpenAI, naming the artificial intelligence company an anchor customer and expanding its AI Factory platform into Malaysia.

Under the agreement, OpenAI will contract dedicated AI compute capacity from two Firmus AI Factory sites in Malaysia. The partnership brings Firmus' total contracted capacity across all customers to more than 900 MW.

The Malaysia expansion extends Firmus' Asia-Pacific footprint beyond its existing presence in Australia, Singapore and Indonesia. The company now operates seven AI factories across four countries, with two sites live - in Australia and Singapore - and five under development, targeting ready-for-service within 24 months.

Firmus said it will deploy NVIDIA Vera Rubin at scale across Asia-Pacific, using NVIDIA's DSX AI Factory Platform to integrate Vera Rubin NVL72 rack-scale systems with Firmus' proprietary HyperCube platform.

The HyperCube combines liquid cooling, mechanical systems and electrification into a repeatable infrastructure unit manufactured and prefabricated in regional New South Wales.

The company said the integrated approach is designed to improve deployment speed, capital efficiency and operating performance, targeting a lower cost of token production.

"This multi-year partnership marks the moment Asia-Pacific becomes a producer of intelligence, not just a consumer of it," said Tim Rosenfield, co-founder and co-chief executive at Firmus.

"Firmus has spent seven years building for this — a footprint that runs from Southeast Asia to Australia, and the manufacturing, technology and teams to bring it online at speed."

"We're excited to work with Firmus as we expand our global compute capacity," said Sachin Katti, vice president of compute strategy at OpenAI.

"These new data centres in Malaysia will help us serve growing demand for OpenAI's products across the region and around the world."

Alongside the OpenAI partnership, Firmus said it intends to establish an Australian AI Access Program to give eligible researchers and organisations access to compute for applications in science, education, agriculture, energy and resource efficiency, and climate resilience.