Sharon AI seals USD $1.32 billion cloud deal in NZ
Mon, 20th Jul 2026 (Yesterday)
Sharon AI has signed a five-year cloud computing services agreement worth USD $1.32 billion with an unnamed global artificial intelligence laboratory.
Services will be delivered from data centre infrastructure in New Zealand. Revenue is expected to begin progressively during the first and second quarters of 2027.
This will be Sharon AI's first announced AI factory deployment in New Zealand. Neither the customer nor the data centre operator has been identified. Sharon AI has also withheld the location of the infrastructure.
Details about the power capacity and number of graphics processing units allocated to the contract remain undisclosed.
Capacity growth
Sharon AI said its total planned AI factory capacity now stands at 132 megawatts. Of that amount, 116MW has been contracted to customers.
More than 62,000 Nvidia GPUs are expected to be deployed by the middle of 2027.
Those figures represent an increase from Sharon AI's position in June. At that stage, the company reported 132MW of total capacity, with 102MW contracted to customers. It expected to deploy more than 55,000 Nvidia GPUs by mid-2027.
Contracted capacity has therefore increased by 14MW, while the planned GPU deployment has risen by at least 7,000 units. Sharon AI has not stated how much of that increase is directly connected to the New Zealand agreement.
New Zealand's established data centre infrastructure and potential for further development supported the decision to enter the market, according to the company.
"We are excited to be deploying our first AI Factory in New Zealand. The established data center infrastructure and future growth potential in country provide Sharon AI with a strong foundation for future expansion. We are pleased to be deploying accelerated compute for another AI native and continue to see strong demand from enterprise, government, hyperscale, AI native and research customers across Asia-Pacific and Rest of World," said James Manning, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Sharon AI.
Customer pipeline
Several large cloud infrastructure agreements have preceded the New Zealand contract during 2026.
Sharon AI signed a five-year agreement with ESDS Software Solutions valued at USD $1.25 billion. That arrangement covers the deployment and operation of a cluster containing about 8,200 Nvidia B300 GPUs at an Australian data centre.
Around 17.8 petabytes of storage supplied by VAST Data will also form part of the ESDS infrastructure. Revenue from the agreement is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2026.
In its first-quarter investor presentation, Sharon AI described the ESDS contract as a take-or-pay arrangement. ESDS also holds an option to extend the initial five-year term by another two years.
A separate five-year agreement announced in May carries a total contract value of about USD $950 million. Its customer was described as a global technology company with a substantial Asia-Pacific presence.
Deployment is expected across multiple NEXTDC data centres in Australia. Revenue is scheduled to begin in stages during the third and fourth quarters of 2026.
Sharon AI has not publicly identified the customer involved in the USD $950 million contract.
NVIDIA agreement
A six-year strategic computing agreement with NVIDIA covers up to 72MW of new Australian data centre capacity.
Valued at up to USD $4.88 billion, the arrangement is designed to support the deployment of as many as 40,000 NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GB300 GPUs.
Both companies plan to use NVIDIA's DSX AI factory design. Sharon AI will sell Nvidia-powered cloud services, while Nvidia will receive product revenue and a share of cloud revenue generated from the supported capacity.
Completion remains subject to Sharon AI procuring, installing and operating the required GPU clusters. Infrastructure availability and repair requirements must also be met.
Debt, equity or asset-backed financing will be needed to support infrastructure required under the NVIDIA agreement and Sharon AI's customer contracts, according to the company.
Expansion funding
Sharon AI raised USD $1.6 billion through a private placement in June to support its infrastructure programme.
Around USD $900 million came from the sale of shares and pre-funded warrants. Another USD $700 million was raised through convertible senior notes carrying an annual interest rate of 4.75% and maturing in 2032.
Proceeds are intended to support the Nvidia collaboration and the company's broader expansion across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.
Sharon AI had previously raised USD $350 million through convertible senior notes carrying a 6% annual interest rate and maturing in 2031.