Three large data center operators are preparing for public listings: Nscale, a London-based AI cloud company founded by former Bitcoin miner Josh Payne, could go public in the U.S. as soon as this month; Vantage Data Centers, led by CEO Sureel Choksi, is exploring an IPO or sale that could value it at $100 billion; and Humain, Saudi Arabia's state AI company run by CEO Tareq Amin, is preparing for a dual listing in Riyadh and New York. All three have previously relied on sovereign wealth funds, private equity, and bank financing rather than public equity. The shift is driven by the scale of modern AI-ready data center projects, which can cost three times as much as conventional facilities and require financing pools large enough to absorb liabilities that commercial lenders will not underwrite alone.
Investors: Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (Humain), Silver Lake and DigitalBridge (Vantage Data Centers); Nscale investors not disclosed in this article.
The potential simultaneous IPOs of Nscale, Vantage, and Humain would mark a structural shift in how AI data center infrastructure is financed, moving from private sovereign and institutional capital toward public equity markets. The scale of projects involved, including Vantage developments budgeted at $15 billion and $25 billion, signals that private financing pools are reaching their limits and that public markets are being positioned as the primary mechanism for funding the next generation of AI infrastructure. A successful listing at Vantage's reported $100 billion valuation would set a new benchmark for data center company valuations globally.