Operator Locked In Ahead of First Compute

Fermi Inc. (NASDAQ:FRMI)(LSE:FRMI), doing business as Fermi America, has turned over the keys to its first data center before the building is even live. On September 24, 2026, the Dallas-based company announced that its subsidiary, Fermi Services LLC, entered into a management agreement with CBRE, the world's largest commercial real estate services firm and a provider of critical infrastructure services.

Under the deal, CBRE becomes the exclusive operations and maintenance provider for building one at Project Matador, the company's large-scale power and compute campus near Amarillo, Texas. The contract lasts five years from the day building one is first ready for service, and Fermi holds the option to renew in five-year increments.

Mobilization Timeline Built Around Notice to Proceed

CBRE's involvement begins well before the data center comes online. Once Fermi issues its notice to proceed, CBRE starts transition work, and site leaders will be on the ground up to 120 days ahead of that notice. During that window, they will build out maintenance programs, inspect equipment, and write operating procedures.

The upshot, according to the company, is that the team that will operate building one is assembled and trained before the facility goes live, with trained crews and maintenance programs added ahead of first compute.

What CBRE Will Manage On Site

Operations and maintenance is described as critical to protecting an AI data center's uptime. CBRE will deploy skilled technicians to monitor building one's performance and respond quickly to maintain the highest level of reliability. Its responsibilities cover the maintenance, cooling, fire protection, and building systems that sit behind the compute.

The framework is also designed to scale. As new buildings come online at Project Matador, Fermi can bring them under the same agreement, holding the campus to one operating standard and ensuring continuity with a single partner as capacity expands.

Voices From Both Sides

Fermi chief executive officer Lee McIntire said the company is locking in proven partners early to make its operations and construction activities as safe and efficient as possible.

He pointed to CBRE's track record running some of the most demanding data center environments in the world, and said bringing the firm in now means that when building one is ready for service, the people, the programs, and the procedures to run it are already in place. On the CBRE side, Scott Howard, President for the Americas for the firm's Data Center Solutions business, called Project Matador one of the most significant data center campuses being built in the country.

Howard said mobilizing large-scale data center campuses is core to what CBRE's DCS business does, and that getting the team on the ground early means building one will be ready to perform from day one.

The Deal Caps a String of Project Matador Milestones

The CBRE agreement arrives on the heels of several other developments at the campus. This month, the first Siemens Energy SGT6-5000F turbines arrived on site. In August, Fermi signed a binding lease with TensorWave, its first customer, and formed an alliance with Hillcore Energy Capital Corporation covering roughly 2.6 gigawatts of added power. Earlier still, Fermi signed Primoris Services Corporation and TSK as its EPC partners.

Project Matador's Scale and Power Strategy

Fermi is building one of the nation's most ambitious private power and compute campuses near Amarillo, and describes Fermi America as where AI gets power.

The company says it is developing one of the world's largest advanced energy and AI ecosystems in the Texas Panhandle, on a site that is secured or under long-term lease, with more than USD 1.5 billion invested in buildout to date.

The project is designed, in Fermi's words, to solve the single biggest constraint in AI infrastructure: access to large-scale, reliable power on a timeline that meets customer demand.

That power is delivered behind the meter on a private grid built and operated on site. Subject to entering into binding customer agreements, the project is expected to ramp to approximately 17 GW, with capital deployment matched to commercial commitments.

The behind-the-meter campus is expected to integrate the nation's biggest combined-cycle natural gas project, one of the largest clean, new nuclear power complexes in America, utility grid power, solar power, and battery energy storage to support hyperscale AI and advanced computing. Fermi America develops next-generation private electric grids that deliver highly redundant power at gigawatt scale to support next-generation intelligence and AI compute, and says its leadership bench has a combined 25 GW of experience.

Forward-Looking Statements Note

The company notes that its press release contains forward-looking statements under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, covering matters including commercial strategy, tenant agreements, expected capacity, delivery schedules, financing arrangements, and future operations, and that actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied.