UniSuper, one of Australia’s biggest pension funds, was among the institutional investors that decided not take part in the IPO.
“We think that Firmus indeed has a compelling story. It just doesn’t have a compelling valuation,” UniSuper’s chief investment officer John Pearce said in an update to investors.
He also said UniSuper was concerned that Firmus would have to go further into debt to fund its growth plans.
“It’s disappointing. The [Australian Securities Exchange] needs new stories and this could have been one if it was correctly priced,” Pearce told the BBC.
Australia has become an attractive destination for data centre investment, thanks to the country’s abundant clean energy, natural gas supplies and land availability.
OpenAI boss Sam Altman said earlier this year that Australia could become a world leader in the data centre industry if it wanted to.
There are currently over 160 data centres in the country and plans for more.
That is despite resistance from some Australians who have raised concerns about their environmental impact and the noise they create.
In September, Altman said OpenAI did not aim to list on the stock market this year, citing concerns over the technology’s safety that make it “an ill-advised moment” to go public.
The ChatGPT-maker, along with rival Anthropic, have been eyeing blockbuster stock market debuts that would value the firms at more than $1tn each.
AI-related stocks, Nvidia and Oracle, fell in US trading on Thursday after reports that OpenAI’s revenues were lower than previously thought.
