Solidigm, DayOne and Switch IPOs: Who Ends Up Holding AI Data-Centre Capex Risk

DayOne, Switch and Solidigm are all heading to US markets. Buyers are already marking down stories that lack power and paying customers. DayOne should clear. Solidigm is asking public money to pay a peak-cycle price and then fund a new fab.

Three AI-infrastructure listings moved forward this week. Singapore's DayOne plans to publish its US filing in mid-October and list in November, Reuters reported, with Las Vegas operator Switch expected to follow. SK Hynix's flash-storage arm, Solidigm, held a bake-off with banks this week for an IPO as early as 2027 that could value it at up to $150 billion and raise about $15 billion. That would be the largest US chip listing on record, nearly three times Arm's roughly $54 billion debut in 2023 and Cerebras's roughly $56 billion this year.

These listings share one transaction: the owners who funded the early build sell to public investors, who then carry the next round of construction and the next turn of the cycle. With 10-year Treasury yields above 5%, buyers have started to charge for that, and they are separating contracted, powered capacity from promises. DayOne passes that test. Solidigm is the deal public investors should push back on hardest.

The evidence of a pickier market is already in prices. SoftBank-backed SB Energy postponed marketing its IPO this week after SEC questions and investor unease over a valuation of about $60 billion and its reliance on OpenAI. Its anchor lease shows how far the credit needs propping up. Nvidia is guaranteeing up to $105 billion to help OpenAI lease SB Energy's Ohio data centre, and is putting $1.5 billion into the developer. Fermi, a power-and-data-centre developer that floated at $21 in October 2025, closed on Friday at $4.52. Csquare, Brookfield's colocation business, priced at $21 in July, below its $23 to $27 range, raised $1.05 billion and closed on Friday at $17.01.

Oracle then showed where the risk sits once a project slips. On September 24 it sent a force majeure notice to a Blue Owl unit developing Project Jupiter in New Mexico, citing power delays. The notice lets Oracle defer payments if the site is not running by 2028. The campus carries $18 billion of bank loans, and that debt is already trading at stressed levels. The tenant has protected itself, which leaves the developer and its lenders holding the delay. An IPO investor in a developer sits in the same position, below the lenders.

DayOne sells what the market still pays for

DayOne, backed by Coatue and Hillhouse, began as the overseas arm of China's GDS Holdings. It has about 2.1 gigawatts of capacity booked across Malaysia, Hong Kong, Japan, Finland and Spain, and its data centres are already in operation. Ke Yan of Shenton Research put the test plainly: "The dividing line is whether demand is contracted and already energised, or only planned." DayOne is on the right side of it.

The detail that stands out is the price. DayOne closed a $4.5 billion Series C in June, and the IPO under discussion would raise up to $5 billion at about $20 billion. That is where private money went in three months ago. Holders who accept no step-up want a permanent public channel for equity. Moody's expects the six biggest US tech companies to spend about $1 trillion on AI in 2027, and every hall built for them needs capital years before the rent arrives. At a flat price, that is a fair thing to buy.

Switch is the sponsor exit in plain view. DigitalBridge and IFM took it private for $11 billion including debt in 2022, and DigitalBridge, the majority owner, has since agreed to be bought by SoftBank. The same Japanese group therefore stands behind both SB Energy and Switch. Switch filed confidentially on August 7 with Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley, could list as soon as November, and has sought a valuation approaching $50 billion including debt, Bloomberg reported. That is more than four times the take-private value.

Solidigm is a different trade

Solidigm is the old Intel flash business, which SK Hynix bought in stages for about $9 billion. It lost money for years, and its equity was negative at the end of 2023. The AI storage boom has turned that around. First-half 2026 revenue was ₩12.3 trillion ($8.7 billion) and net profit ₩5.8 trillion ($4.1 billion), a 48% net margin against under 4% a year earlier, according to figures from SK Hynix's half-year report. Annualise that half and $150 billion is about 18 times earnings.

The logic for SK Hynix is a multiple arbitrage. The parent is worth about ₩1,360 trillion, roughly $960 billion, and trades at about eight times trailing earnings, according to StockAnalysis. Sandisk, the only large US-listed pure play in flash, is valued at $260 billion and 24 times trailing earnings. By listing Solidigm in New York, SK Hynix can sell a slice of a business its own investors value at a memory-conglomerate multiple to buyers who pay a Sandisk multiple. The parent is already building toward that mark. Last month, after reports of a pre-IPO round of about ₩5 trillion ($3.6 billion), SK Hynix said it was weighing ways to strengthen Solidigm.

Bulls have a real argument. TrendForce estimates that enterprise SSD revenue at the top five suppliers doubled quarter on quarter to $37.6 billion in the second quarter, and at Sandisk's sales multiple Solidigm would be worth well over $150 billion.

The forward multiples answer them: about 8.3 times for Sandisk and 4.6 times for SK Hynix. That is how the market prices earnings it expects to fall, because flash earnings rise and fall with contract prices. Solidigm also has a capacity problem that the public money would fix. Its chips come from the former Intel fab in Dalian, and since December 31 that fab has needed case-by-case US licences to import American tools. SK Hynix is weighing a US flash fab, with upstate New York the leading candidate, and an IPO could pay for it. The $15 billion raise would fund an American plant at American costs, and its output would arrive years after today's prices.

Solidigm shows the transfer most clearly across the three deals. The early owners, SK Hynix, Coatue and Hillhouse, and DigitalBridge and IFM, keep control or take liquidity. New public holders fund the next build and carry the risk that it arrives late or into a weaker market.

DayOne should price in November at or slightly below its $20 billion Series C mark, because its capacity already earns rent and its holders need the channel more than the markup. Switch should follow before year-end only if DayOne holds its issue price. Solidigm is the one to resist at the headline. If NAND contract prices are still rising when the books open in 2027, SK Hynix will get something close to its number. We think they will have cooled by then, and that the listing lands nearer $100 billion. Even that is about 12 times run-rate earnings, a good exit for the seller.

Solidigm, DayOne and Switch IPOs: Who Ends Up Holding AI Data-Centre Capex Risk

DayOne sells what the market still pays for

Solidigm is a different trade

Sources

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