Investment firm Forum Markets is partnering with an upstart neocloud provider to deploy compute capacity at data centers and communication towers.

Nasdaq-listed Forum Markets, Incorporated announced the formation of Forum Edge AI LLC, a joint venture with Edge Node Inc., to own and operate high-performance inference compute capacity at sites that already have power and permits in place.

The move is Forum’s first major investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure. Forum holds majority ownership (51 percent) of and controls the Joint Venture (JV), which has an initial portfolio consisting of 2MW of a 4MW data center in Dallas; a 9MW data center campus in High Point, North Carolina; and one initial mobile communications tower site of 1-2MW, with the ability to scale under separate agreements with tower firm SBA Communications and Tillman Infrastructure.

Forum Edge AI aims to allocate compute capacity to large, high-credit-quality counterparties over a multi-year period.

"We have looked at myriad AI financing and infrastructure opportunities over the past several months, and we were deliberate about where we were willing to commit capital," said McAndrew Rudisill, chairman and CEO of Forum. "Deal flow was never the constraint in this market. Discipline was. We were patient because we were looking for a specific set of characteristics: sites where the power and the permits already exist; equipment we can finance on terms we can model and collateralize; a structure that keeps risk contained at the project level; and a credible partner whose economics are aligned with our own over the long term. This transaction has all four, and we believe it represents the most attractive risk-adjusted return we have underwritten to date. I am genuinely excited about the growth potential it unlocks for Forum, and we are intensely focused on the execution that will generate that growth, one site at a time."

The Dallas data center currently offers 2MW, operated by Edge Node AI, with another 2MW coming later this year or early next year and allocated to the joint venture.

The High Point site totals six buildings across a 5-acre campus, with 9MW of live utility power that will be 100 percent owned by the Forum Edge AI Joint Venture. The first 6MW of the site is expected to be energized by Q1 2027.

The one mobile tower deployment is located in Texas near the venture’s existing Dallas data center and is expected to be completed by mid-2027. The JV will own the equipment at the site and will pay the tower owners a monthly fee.

Full details of the sites have not been shared.

Forum said it expects to contract additional sites with other communications tower owners moving forward.

As part of the agreement, Forum and Edge Node AI will exchange 9.95 percent equity stakes in each respective company.

Forum Markets is an asset manager that was previously focused on “tokenization of institutional-grade real-world assets on Ethereum.” Today the firm describes itself as investing in cash-generating assets across AI infrastructure, commercial aerospace, manufactured housing finance, and auto credit.

Founded last year, Texas-based Edge Node is a ‘Tokens-as-a-Service’ provider, aiming to offer low-latency compute and inference services and access to LLMs in the US. The company is yet to launch its services.

"The next phase of AI infrastructure will require more than simply adding GPU capacity—it will require a distributed compute architecture that brings high-performance inference closer to where workloads and customers operate. Edge Node AI has been built around that vision," said Mallik Panda, founder and CEO of Edge Node AI. "Forum brings significant capabilities in capital markets, financing, structuring, power, and GPU supply that are highly complementary to our technical and operating capabilities. Together, we believe Forum Edge AI provides a strong platform to deploy infrastructure rapidly across powered data centers and distributed edge locations while maintaining disciplined, project-level economics. We are excited to work alongside Forum to build and scale this platform."

Tower firm SBA has deployed small data centers at several tower sites across Texas, Florida, and Massachusetts, via its SBA Edge unit.