❯ Data center rack maker Oxide Computer raises a $445 million Series D, with demand still outrunning a 20x capacity expansion

Returning backer Eclipse leadsData center hardware company Oxide Computer announced a $445 million Series D on October 9. According to SiliconANGLE, returning backer Eclipse led, joined by AMD Ventures, Jane Street and others. According to Techmeme, relaying Axios, the round values the company at $6 billion and brings total funding to about $835 million.

A rack that arrives assembledOxide sells a data center rack that combines computing, storage and network equipment in a pre-integrated package. Each rack has 24 hardware modules called sleds, each hosting an AMD processor with up to 144 cores. Customers can split the hardware in a rack into multiple virtual networks; a software company, for example, could give each engineering team its own environment.

The previous round was in FebruaryThis February, Oxide closed a $200 million round led by USIT. CEO Steve Tuck said on-premises cloud projects are accelerating, that the company scaled manufacturing capacity 20x over the past 12 months, and that demand still exceeds supply; the money will go into materials and manufacturing scale.

Bringing the cloud back in-houseOxide’s customers are companies that want a cloud experience in their own data centers. In August it disclosed plans for a computing sled that can host a graphics card and hinted it would partner with AMD. That would give companies one more way to run AI workloads on premises without assembling servers themselves, and leave public cloud providers facing a share of compute demand that stays in customers’ own hands.

▮ SIGNALWith compute tight and data required to stay on site, the business of buying the cloud and taking it home is growing again, and manufacturing capacity is now its biggest constraint.