Data centre owner NextDC has hit the big leagues – its first $1 billion-plus equity raising that should help catapult it into Australia’s top-50 listed companies.

Fourteen years after floating as an $80 million micro cap, NextDC is riding a wave of customer demand for data centre space and investor appetite for AI’s picks and shovels, to fill its boots, accelerate development at new sites in Sydney and Melbourne and buy more land.