Forum Markets, Incorporated (Nasdaq) has formed Forum Edge AI LLC, a joint venture with Texas-based Edge Node Inc. that targets 12-15MW of high-performance inference capacity at pre-powered US sites. The asset manager announced the formation.

Forum holds 51 percent of the new entity and exercises control. The two parent companies will exchange 9.95 percent equity stakes as part of the agreement.

What is the initial portfolio?

The JV's first assets aggregate roughly 12-15MW across three sites:

• A 4MW Dallas data center, of which 2MW is already allocated to the JV; an additional 2MW should come online later this year or early next year.
• A 9MW campus in High Point, North Carolina, comprising six buildings on five acres. Forum Edge AI will own the site outright; the first 6MW should come online by Q1 2027.
• One mobile communications tower site in Texas near Dallas, sized at 1-2MW, targeted for completion by mid-2027.

The Dallas site is currently operated by Edge Node AI. Forum expects additional contracts with other tower operators to follow.

How is the structure and financing arranged?

The venture will sell compute capacity to large, high-credit-quality counterparties under multi-year contracts, Forum said. At the tower site, the JV owns the equipment and pays a monthly fee to the tower operator under separate agreements with SBA Communications and Tillman Infrastructure. SBA has already deployed small data centers at tower locations in Texas, Florida, and Massachusetts through its SBA Edge unit.

Forum chairman and CEO McAndrew Rudisill framed the discipline behind the deal: "We have looked at myriad AI financing and infrastructure opportunities over the past several months, and we were deliberate about where we were willing to commit capital. Deal flow was never the constraint in this market. Discipline was."

He expanded on the criteria: "We were patient because we were looking for a specific set of characteristics: sites where the power and the permits already exist; equipment we can finance on terms we can model and collateralize; a structure that keeps risk contained at the project level; and a credible partner whose economics are aligned with our own over the long term. This transaction has all four, and we believe it represents the most attractive risk-adjusted return we have underwritten to date."

Who is Edge Node?

Edge Node set up shop in Texas last year and pitches itself as a "Tokens-as-a-Service" provider. The startup has not yet launched commercial services and positions itself around low-latency compute, inference, and LLM access in the US market.

Founder and CEO Mallik Panda described the technical rationale: "The next phase of AI infrastructure will require more than simply adding GPU capacity—it will require a distributed compute architecture that brings high-performance inference closer to where workloads and customers operate. Edge Node AI has been built around that vision."

He added: "Forum brings significant capabilities in capital markets, financing, structuring, power, and GPU supply that are highly complementary to our technical and operating capabilities. Together, we believe Forum Edge AI provides a strong platform to deploy infrastructure rapidly across powered data centers and distributed edge locations while maintaining disciplined, project-level economics."

What does the JV mean for Forum?

The deal marks Forum's first major commitment to AI infrastructure. The firm previously described itself as focused on tokenizing institutional-grade real-world assets on Ethereum. It now invests in cash-generating assets across AI infrastructure, commercial aerospace, manufactured housing finance, and auto credit. Full site-level financial disclosures have not been released.