Megaport's Ambitious AI Expansion Fuels Stock Surge

BRISBANE, Australia — Shares of . climbed $1.01, or 5.72%, to $18.67, as the network-as-a-service provider continues attracting investor attention following an aggressive full-year 2027 growth forecast tied to its expanding push into AI compute infrastructure.

The stock's gain adds to what has been a volatile but ultimately strong run for Megaport shares over the past year, with the stock trading within a 52-week range spanning from $6.40 to $22.98, according to Investing.com. That wide range reflects both the significant swings the shares have experienced tied to individual earnings reports and the broader re-rating the market has applied to the company as it repositions itself around the artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout.

Megaport, headquartered in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, operates one of the world's largest software-defined network platforms, enabling more than 3,000 enterprise customers to connect to more than 1,100 data centers across 31 countries. The company's core business allows businesses to establish flexible, on-demand connections to major cloud service providers, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform, without requiring long-term contracts, along with connectivity between multiple data centers and internet exchange points.

Megaport reported full-year 2026 revenue of $312 million Australian dollars, up 37% year over year, with EBITDA reaching $77 million, representing a 25% margin that exceeded the company's own prior guidance. The company said it expanded its data center footprint to 1,100 locations across 31 countries during the year, adding 155 new locations, while its network net revenue retention rate improved to 114%, indicating that existing customers are meaningfully increasing their spending with the company over time rather than simply maintaining current usage levels.

Despite those results beating guidance, Megaport shares initially fell 6.1% to $19.10 following the full-year results release, reflecting a common pattern in which markets focus heavily on forward guidance rather than backward-looking results, even when those results themselves exceed expectations.

The company's fiscal 2027 guidance has proven central to the bull case driving the stock's subsequent recovery and continued gains. Megaport is projecting revenue of between $620 million and $730 million for fiscal 2027, representing growth of 100% to 130% compared with fiscal 2026, alongside EBITDA margins expected to reach 38% to 40%. The wide range in that guidance reflects uncertainty specifically tied to the timing of deployments within the company's newer compute division, a business segment still in a relatively early, rapidly scaling phase.

To fund the infrastructure buildout required to support that ambitious growth trajectory, Megaport has committed $826 million Australian dollars in strategic contract capital expenditure, while separately securing an $825 million debt facility and completing an $827 million capital raise. That combination of debt and equity funding is intended to give the company sufficient capital to execute on its expansion plans without needing to return to capital markets repeatedly as the buildout progresses.

Much of Megaport's newer growth trajectory is tied to its expansion into AI compute infrastructure, a shift the company accelerated in late 2025 through its acquisition of Latitude.sh, which added on-demand and contracted GPU cloud services to its existing network platform. That acquisition positioned Megaport to capture a share of the broader enterprise demand for AI computing capacity, extending the company's business well beyond its traditional core focus on network connectivity alone.

Megaport's chief executive has set a target of sustaining growth above 20% annually through fiscal 2030, according to Investing.com's reporting on the company's strategic positioning, with the company describing its ambition to become the "global leader in automated infrastructure as a service," a framing that reflects the company's broader pivot toward positioning itself at the center of enterprise AI infrastructure demand rather than solely as a traditional network connectivity provider.

Wall Street analyst sentiment toward Megaport has remained broadly positive despite the stock's volatility. According to Investing.com, the average 12-month price target for the stock stands at $25.19, with a high estimate of $33.52 and a low estimate of $17.00. Of the analysts covering the stock, 14 currently recommend buying shares, with none suggesting investors sell, resulting in an overall consensus "Buy" rating and implying roughly 48% potential upside from recent trading levels based on the average target price.

Not every assessment of the stock has been uniformly bullish. Motley Fool Australia has previously noted that investing expert Scott Phillips did not include Megaport among his top five stock picks through the firm's Share Advisor service, suggesting at least some professional stock pickers see more attractive opportunities elsewhere within the current market, even while acknowledging the company's strong underlying growth trajectory.

The company operates across three primary network segments, spanning the Americas, Asia-Pacific, and Europe, the Middle East and Africa, alongside its rapidly growing Compute division built around the Latitude.sh acquisition. That segment structure gives Megaport meaningful geographic diversification even as its growth increasingly concentrates around the AI-driven compute business specifically.

With Tuesday's gain extending Megaport's recovery from its post-earnings dip, investors will likely continue watching closely for further updates on the pace of compute division deployments, given the wide range built into the company's fiscal 2027 revenue guidance specifically tied to that uncertainty. Continued execution on the company's $826 million capital expenditure commitment, along with any additional data center expansion or customer wins tied to its AI compute offering, are expected to remain the key metrics shaping investor sentiment toward the stock as Megaport works to translate its ambitious growth targets into sustained financial performance heading into fiscal 2027 and beyond.