\n<\/p>\n
Fluidstack, a startup that builds specialized data centers for AI companies, is in talks to raise a $1 billion round at an $18 billion valuation, potentially led by Jane Street, Bloomberg reports.<\/p>\n
Should this deal come to fruition, it would more than double Fluidstack\u2019s valuation in a matter of months.<\/p>\n
In December, the company was reportedly raising around $700 million at a $7.5 billion valuation, sources told Bloomberg at the time, although it didn\u2019t formally announce the close of that round. That round was said to be led by Situational Awareness, an AGI-focused fund founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, and backed by Stripe\u2019s Collison brothers, former GitHub CEO Nat Friedman, and the AI investor and entrepreneur Daniel Gross.<\/p>\n
Talks were apparently still ongoing for this round in February, at least with Google, which was considering kicking in $100 million to the round, The Wall Street Journal reported.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s good reason for the hype over Fluidstack. In November, Anthropic announced that it had signed a $50 billion deal with the startup to build data centers custom-designed for its needs in Texas and New York. Unlike hyperscalers like AWS, which serve all kinds of computing needs, Fluidstack\u2019s infrastructure is built specifically for AI.<\/p>\n
The deal was a huge vote of confidence for Fluidstack, a company that was relatively unknown in the U.S. Anthropic primarily uses AWS and Google Cloud to serve Claude (though it also has a partnership with Microsoft to supply Claude to that software giant\u2019s customers). But just like rival OpenAI, Anthropic is growing so fast that it needs more capacity, and this deal gives Anthropic more control over its own cloud infrastructure.<\/p>\n
This partnership is so significant to the startup, that Fluidstack \u2014 which was spun out of Oxford and had been a rising star in Europe\u2019s AI scene \u2014 relocated its headquarters from the U.K. to New York. Last month, it also pulled out of a key \u20ac10 billion AI project in France, Bloomberg reported, to focus on U.S. opportunities.<\/p>\n
Techcrunch event<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSan Francisco, CA<\/span> In addition to Anthropic, it counts Meta, Poolside, Black Forest Labs, and others as customers. Prior to the deal with Anthropic, Fluidstack was probably best known for providing infrastructure to Mistral.<\/p>\n Fluidstack did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOctober 13-15, 2026<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n