Business · Companies · 3 hrs ago
AI compute shortages put SCX.ai’s inference strategy in focus
Apollo Global Management says demand for AI computing is outpacing supply across areas including chips, memory and electricity.
The shortage matters because AI agents can use far more computing power than conventional chatbots, with some tasks consuming 100 to 1,000 times more tokens.
Tokens are the units of information AI models process and generate, and inference is the computing that lets trained models produce answers and complete tasks.
Australian-listed SCX.ai is focusing on AI inference, rather than the large computer clusters often used to train models.
It uses inference accelerators developed by US company SambaNova Systems in Australian data centres, and its first node began operating at Equinix’s SY5 centre in Sydney in March 2026.
SCX.ai raised $40 million in an initial public offering before listing on the ASX in August 2026.
The company plans to expand capacity as demand for AI inference grows.
Apollo Global Management warns that demand for AI computing power is outstripping supply across key parts of the infrastructure market.
The shortages include graphics processing units, memory, semiconductor manufacturing capacity and electricity infrastructure.
The growing use of AI agents is increasing demand for inference capacity, with some workloads using 100 to 1000 times more tokens than conventional chatbot requests.
ASX-listed SCX.ai is targeting this demand with purpose-built inference technology deployed in Australian data centres.
The company’s first infrastructure node began operating at Equinix’s SY5 data centre in Sydney in March 2026.
- Who
- SCX.ai, an Australian-listed AI infrastructure company, and Apollo Global Management, which warned of compute shortages.
- What
- SCX.ai is targeting growing demand for AI inference with purpose-built technology. Apollo says demand for computing power is outstripping supply.
- When
- The article was published on 15 October 2026. SCX.ai’s first infrastructure node began operating in March 2026.
- Where
- SCX.ai’s first node is at Equinix’s SY5 data centre in Sydney, Australia.
- Why
- AI agents and other applications are increasing demand for computing capacity, while supply is constrained across parts of the AI infrastructure market.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
SCX.ai’s first infrastructure node began operating at Equinix’s SY5 data centre in Sydney.
SCX.ai listed on the ASX following a $40 million initial public offering.
Stockhead published its report on compute shortages and SCX.ai’s inference strategy.
- Apollo funds under management
- Roughly US$1 trillion
- Agentic AI workload token use
- 100 to 1000 times conventional chatbot requests, according to Apollo
- Agent token use
- Seven times more tokens than human users, according to OpenRouter
- First infrastructure node
- Equinix SY5 data centre, Sydney
- Initial public offering
- $40 million