Brookfield's new AI unit Radiant valued at $1.3 billion after merger with UK startup, sources say

By Sam Tabahriti

LONDON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Brookfield Asset Management's new AI infrastructure company Radiant has been valued at $1.3 billion after merging with London-based cloud computing firm Ori Industries, according to three people with knowledge of the matter and a document seen by Reuters.

Radiant, a new company the Canadian asset manager created to provide on-demand access to artificial intelligence chips, said it had combined with Ori in a deal announced on Tuesday without disclosing any financial terms.

All of Ori's existing investors have rolled their stakes into Radiant, the sources said, adding that Brookfield injected fresh capital into the new company. Reuters could not determine how much of the valuation reflected Ori's contribution.

The valuation was established earlier this month, according to the document and one of the people. Reuters could not determine if it had changed since then.

Brookfield and Ori declined to comment.

The sources declined to be identified because the terms were not made public.

RACE TO BUILD AI INFRASTRUCTURE

Companies House filings show that Ori had 42.5 million pounds ($57.2 million) in total assets less current liabilities at the end of 2024. Total debt was 11.3 million pounds from 4.4 million pounds a year earlier, according to its filed accounts.

The deal comes as investors race to build the data-centre, power and chip infrastructure needed for advanced AI, amid a shortage of high-performance compute capacity.

Mahdi Yahya, the founder of Ori, a startup backed by Saudi Aramco's venture arm, will now be president of Radiant.

"For more than seven years we have been designing software to support AI infrastructure at scale, and it was clear Brookfield was the right partner," he said in a statement on Tuesday. "Through Radiant we can help address the supply-demand imbalance that has defined AI since 2023."

Vishal Padiyar, executive chair of Radiant, said the company blends infrastructure and software to support governments and major enterprises, aiming to lower computing costs and improve performance at scale.

Radiant is one of the first projects backed by Brookfield's AI infrastructure fund, which is seeking $10 billion in investor commitments and aims to scale to as much as $100  billion through co-investment and financing.

The fund includes up to $5  billion earmarked for Bloom Energy to install up to 1 gigawatt of behind-the-meter power solutions for data centres and AI factories, while chipmaker Nvidia contributed to the fund's initial capital and will supply chips to Radiant. 

Britain is ramping up data-centre construction and plans to expand national computing capacity 20-fold by 2030 as data centres are classed as critical infrastructure. 

Global players such as Google and Microsoft have pledged multi-billion-pound investments to the sector in the UK, alongside up to 2 billion pounds ($2.70 billion) in public funding under the UK's Compute Roadmap. 

($1 = 0.7403 pounds)

(Reporting by Sam Tabahriti; Editing by Anousha Sakoui and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)