June 3 (Reuters) - Australia's Megaport said on Wednesday it has secured four new AI infrastructure contracts worth A$458.9 million and will raise A$827.3 million ($594 million) to build an inference cloud to cash in on surging demand for AI-related facilities.
The deals underscore the fierce race among infrastructure providers to capture a share of the booming AI compute market, as firms across industries scramble to secure access to scarce GPU capacity needed to run increasingly complex AI models.
"Megaport is positioning itself as a picks-and-shovels player in the AI gold rush — benefiting from the next wave of AI infrastructure buildout," said Hebe Chen, a market analyst at Vantage Markets.
The four contracts, all with U.S.-based technology providers running AI applications, are expected to start in the first half of 2027 and require nearly A$369.5 million in capital expenditure, primarily for high-performance Nvidia GPUs, network and storage infrastructure.
Megaport said it would set up a globally distributed AI inference cloud, anchored by an on-demand GPU pool backed by A$350 million in investment, which will be offered to enterprise customers through contracted and consumption-based pricing models.
The move marks a big step up in Megaport's push into AI infrastructure, with the company betting that demand for GPU-based compute will surge as enterprise AI adoption shifts from model training to latency-sensitive inference workloads.
The firm, which uses Nvidia and AMD chips, said its network of more than 1,100 data centres in 31 countries puts it in a strong position to deliver AI compute closer to end users, addressing key bottlenecks such as power, connectivity, and access to high-performance GPUs.
"The GPU pool could push Megaport further up the value chain, from simply connecting data centres and cloud platforms to helping enterprises access the computing power needed to deploy AI at scale," said Chen.
Under the A$827.3 million entitlement offer, Megaport will issue shares at A$14.30 each, representing a 13.9% discount to the stock's last close on June 1. Shares of the firm were on a trading halt until June 5.
Megaport also tightened its 2026 revenue forecast to A$307 million-A$315 million, reflecting strong momentum in its network business. Its previous expectation was between A$302 million and A$317 million.
($1 = 1.3933 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Rajasik Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Subhranshu Sahu)
