Cloud-computing startup Fluidstack is negotiating a funding round of nearly $700 million that would push its valuation to around $7 billion, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The potential round would be led by Situational Awareness, the investment firm founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner. Google has been exploring participation, while Goldman Sachs is acting as the banker on the transaction.
The new gold rush for data centres
Fluidstack’s rapid rise is tied to an unprecedented demand for computing power. With the construction of data centres accelerating worldwide to support increasingly complex AI systems, investors are moving aggressively to secure strategic positions.
Once a relatively obscure player, the startup has surged into focus as part of a new wave of “neoclouds”. These are companies leasing high-performance compute capacity to organisations developing heavy-duty models and workloads.
Major tech giants, most visibly Microsoft, have been pouring billions into such companies to secure future computing access amid growing scarcity. Fluidstack’s relocation from the UK to its new headquarters in New York signals its ambition to compete on a global stage. For investors, the startup sits directly at the intersection of two powerful forces, including infrastructure investment and the AI boom.
High-stakes financing structures reshape the market
In the past year, founded by Gary Wu and Cesar Maklary Fluidstack has executed two major deals with Google that showcase the increasingly non-traditional methods being used to finance data-intensive infrastructure.
Partnering with crypto miners TeraWulf and Cipher Mining, the company agreed to build data centers supported by debt financing. In both cases, Google acted as a “backstop”, stepping in to repay creditors if Fluidstack fails to meet its obligations. It’s a structure reminiscent of the recent path taken by Meta, which secured around $60 billion for similar build-outs while keeping half of it off its balance sheet.
These arrangements show how the capital demands of the AI era are driving experimentation across project financing. Rather than simply selling software or cloud contracts, companies like Fluidstack are rapidly becoming global infrastructure builders, requiring financing models more common in energy or real-estate development.
Global ambitions backed by political and industrial momentum
Fluidstack isn’t limiting its growth to the US. Earlier this year, French President Emmanuel Macron spotlighted the company as part of his country’s national AI strategy.
In February, Fluidstack announced a €10 billion plan to build a “supercomputer” in France with one gigawatt of capacity, a facility slated to open in 2026 and expected to become one of Europe’s most powerful compute hubs.
The company’s customer base already includes Meta, Honeywell and several fast-growing technology startups. As the rush to secure compute capacity intensifies, the stakes of its current funding round are high.
If completed, a $700 million raise would not only mark one of the largest financings in the neocloud sector but also further confirm that computing infrastructure, once treated as basic utility, has become one of the most powerful investment battlegrounds of this decade.
