It was not even three months ago that Fermi America, the Texas company co-founded by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, announced its plans for the “HyperGrid” project. It’s planned to be one of the world’s largest data center complexes, with the potential to deliver 11 gigawatts of power through a mix of gas, solar, and a massive new nuclear facility.
Now, the company has already filed for an initial public offering.
This past Monday, it filed for a listing on the Nasdaq, and stated its intention to file on the London Stock Exchange as well. In the accompanying SEC filing, Fermi said it is on track to have the first gigawatt of power online by 2026, and that it is in the pre-approval process with the DOE’s Loan Programs Office, for a loan that “would provide long-term, low-cost capital to finance key components of our advanced energy infrastructure.”
The news of the listing comes a couple of weeks after Fermi closed a $100 million Series C preferred equity financing round led by Macquarie Group, and established a $250 million senior loan facility funded by Macquarie’s commodities and global markets business. A few days before that, the company announced it was collaborating with Westinghouse Electric Company to deploy four advanced modular reactors at the site.
It was a busy, almost frantic, summer, especially for a company that hasn’t generated any revenue yet.
Usually, before filing for an IPO, a large data center company would need to have upfront capital, physical assets, and long-term customer contracts to demonstrate a path to cash flow. Fermi isn’t quite there yet. As the filing shows, it plans to rely on the IPO proceeds, future project financing, and potential loans (including the DOE one) to fund the projects — all things that it hasn’t secured yet.
Some might say it looks like a textbook hype cycle play — not inherently good or bad, but certainly risky. And recent moves by others in the AI space certainly seem like evidence for that interpretation.
Just days before Fermi’s IPO announcement, OpenAI said it is expecting to burn a total of $115 billion in cash through 2029; meanwhile, Anthropic raised a $13 billion Series F round with a post-money valuation of up to $183 billion, nearly three times what it was last March. And yesterday, Oracle’s latest earnings report piled on, with the company revealing it expects its cloud infrastructure revenue will climb up to $144 billion over the next four years, up from $18 billion this fiscal year. The projection is leaving analysts “blown away.”
But what if it’s not just hype? It’s impossible to know for sure at this stage, but to get a better sense of where Fermi stands, we broke down the assets and commitments that give the company credibility for its ambitious IPO and its 11 GW campus plans — and those that are still missing.
What Fermi DOES have:
- Roughly $350 million in cash, including equity, convertible debt financing, and the $100 million in preferred equity financing led by the Macquarie Group, announced in late August.
- A $100 million senior secured loan, which can be increased to $250 million and will partly finance 600 megawatts of gas turbines and other equipment, which the company has already acquired for its near-term goal of one GW of power in 2026.
- Submitted applications “to federal and state infrastructure programs, including the DOE Loan Programs Office, the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, and the Texas HB14 Advanced Nuclear Completion Fund.” (None of these has been approved yet.)
- A 99-year ground lease with Texas Tech University for 5,769 acres of land in Amarillo, Texas.
- Plans to deploy four advanced modular reactors at the site, and initiated permit requests, including Combined Operating License Application documentation, initially submitted to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June.
What Fermi DOES NOT (yet) have:
- A finalized DOE loan and federal financing, and long-term project debt that could cover the full buildout of the 11 GW campus.
- Anchor tenants. According to the filing, Fermi is “in advanced discussions with a select group of foundational anchor tenants” interested in its project, including “AI model developers, GPU manufacturers pursuing integrated compute and power co-location strategies; and next-gen cloud and sovereign AI providers seeking full-stack ownership of energy and compute campuses.” No contracts have been signed yet.
- Any fully constructed physical infrastructure.
- An active grid connection with Southwestern Public Service Company, which is expected to contribute 200 MW to the project, through a contractual agreement that is expected but not finalized yet.
- Environmental permits.
Meanwhile, the SEC filing accompanying the IPO includes a long list of potential risks and factors that could change the path to project development, including the fact that “the market for generating nuclear power is not yet established and may not achieve the growth potential we expect or may grow more slowly than expected.”
As the company itself efficiently summarizes, Fermi is “a development-stage company with no operating history or historical revenue, and we face execution risk across all major components of our business.” An unlikely candidate for an IPO, many would argue, but these are interesting times.
A version of this story was published in the AI-Energy Nexus newsletter on September 10. Subscribe to get pieces like this — plus expert analysis, original reporting, and curated resources — in your inbox every Wednesday.
