Neocloud Fluidstack is reportedly pulling out of projects in France to pursue more lucrative opportunities in the US.

The firm had been set to install its infrastructure, which is designed for HPC and AI workloads, at a new data center planned at Bosquel Business Park, located near junction 17 of the A16 motorway between Lille and Paris in northern France.

DCD reported last December that the Somme Sud-Ouest Community of Municipalities (CC2SO), a group of local authorities in the Somme department, was seeking a company to build and run the project, and had apparently selected Fluidstack.

However, a report from Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the situation, said Fluidstack has now pulled out and that CC2SO is seeking an alternative operator.

It is not clear if Fluidstack was intending to build the data center itself. Typically, the company partners with data center companies to install its infrastructure at their campuses.

It is also unclear if this is the data center where Fluidstack intended to host a 1GW supercomputer, which it had previously pledged to build in France. It signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding with the French government last February to develop the facility, and said at the time it would be operational in 2026.

The report said Fluidstack has also canceled a deal that would have seen it provide infrastructure at a data center being built by Eclairion in the suburbs of Paris. French AI lab Mistral is due to occupy most of the space at the data center, which DCD visited last year, though it is also set to use hardware provided by another AI cloud, Scaleway.

Both decisions have apparently been made to allow Fluidstack to concentrate on the US market, according to Bloomberg. DCD has contacted Fluidstack and Eclairion for comment on the report.

Fluidstack was founded and headquartered in the UK until recently, when it moved to New York. It is reportedly in talks to raise $700 million at a $7 billion valuation to fund its growth plans.

Its business in the US is backed by Google, which has backstopped billions in loans to support Fluidstack's data center buildout.

Fluidstack has leased data center space from TeraWulf and Cipher Mining, with Google taking stakes in those companies as part of the overall agreement. Google then leases capacity from Fluidstack.

Generative AI company Anthropic last year announced a $50bn partnership with Fluidstack to develop data centers in Texas and New York, but it is unclear if these are the Cipher/TeraWulf sites.