Milbank, Latham & Watkins and Australia’s Gilbert + Tobin are advising AI infrastructure company Firmus on its U.S.$10 billion debt financing facility to acquire AI infrastructure to be deployed in an “AI factory” data centre in Melbourne. The loan was from investment fund Blackstone—advised by Australia’s Allens—and global technology investment platform Coatue, advised by Latham & Watkins’s team led by New York partners Tracey Zaccone, David Siegel, and Paul Bonewitz. The Allens team was led by Melbourne M&A partner Emin Altiparmak, and included partners Joshua Hoare, Jamie Taylor, Gavin Rakoczy and Gavin Smith. Blackstone was also advised by IP partner Tracy Lu and foreign investment advisory partner Jeremy Low. The G+T team was led by special counsel James Frixou. “This financing will set the benchmark for other AI compute financing in Australia and around Asia Pacific more broadly,” said Milbank Partner James Orme who led the firm’s team along with partner James Murray. “Demand for digital infrastructure solutions continues to grow exponentially, and this transaction is yet another testament to the financial markets’ desire to invest around leading AI compute/data centre-focused companies like Firmus,” Murray said in a statement.