Doosan Doubles Down on Troubled HyAxiom, Eyes Nasdaq Listing Amid AI Power Boom

[Korea Financial Times, Jung Jina] Doosan Corp. is moving to rescue its US subsidiary HyAxiom, which has been in capital impairment since 2022, transforming the loss-making unit into its fuel cell hub in the United States.

Doosan has continued to inject capital into HyAxiom through payment guarantees and convertible preferred share issuances, with an eye toward stabilizing its finances enough to pursue a Nasdaq listing.

KRW 823.6 Billion in Orders Within Two Weeks

Doosan Fuel Cell disclosed on Sept. 15 that it had signed an additional supply contract worth KRW 322.2 billion for phosphoric acid fuel cells (PAFC).
The deal follows a KRW 501.4 billion contract signed on Sept. 2, marking back-to-back orders. Under both agreements, Doosan Fuel Cell manufactures PAFC units at its Iksan plant in Korea and ships them to HyAxiom, which then supplies them to AI data centers in the United States. The combined value of the two contracts, KRW 823.6 billion, exceeds 180% of Doosan Fuel Cell's 2025 consolidated revenue of KRW 454.8 billion.

HyAxiom traces back to ClearEdge Power, a bankrupt US building-fuel-cell maker that Doosan Corp. acquired for USD 32.4 million in July 2014 and relaunched as Doosan Fuel Cell America, with the aim of directly breaking into the US market. The unit was renamed HyAxiom in 2022. The problem is that HyAxiom's finances remain unstable: its total shareholders' equity stood at -KRW 156.3 billion as of H1 2026.

Total equity first turned negative in 2022, falling from KRW 136.6 billion at the end of 2021 to -KRW 73.3 billion in 2022. It has since fluctuated between -KRW 173.2 billion in 2023, -KRW 102.3 billion in 2024 and -KRW 126.1 billion in 2025, remaining in capital impairment for more than four years.

Revenue was equally volatile over the same period. Sales of KRW 200.5 billion in 2022 nearly collapsed to a third of that level, falling to KRW 74.5 billion in 2023. H1 2026 revenue of KRW 16.1 billion also plunged 82.7% from KRW 93.3 billion in the same period last year.

Rescuing a Capital-Impaired US Foothold

Around the onset of capital impairment, HyAxiom went through repeated rounds of restructuring and emergency capital injections. In February 2023, it cut 57 employees, or 19% of its workforce. Five months later, in July, it raised USD 150 million (about KRW 195 billion) on an emergency basis by issuing convertible preferred shares to three Korean institutional investors — Korea Investment Private Equity, a KDB Investment-Hana Securities consortium, and KB Asset Management. The investment reduced Doosan Corp.'s stake in HyAxiom from 100% to 86.21%.
HyAxiom carried out further workforce reductions in March and November 2024, and in April of the same year refinanced KRW 100 billion in privately placed bonds at an interest rate in the mid-7% range, on the condition that Doosan Corp. provide a payment guarantee.

Doosan Corp. is currently providing HyAxiom with payment guarantees worth KRW 511.7 billion, and its board approved related guarantees and loans on at least five separate occasions between 2022 and 2024.

Riding the AI Power Boom Toward an IPO

Behind Doosan's decision to prop up a financially troubled unit lies a surge in US power demand driven by AI data centers. As data center power demand outpaces the buildout of generation and transmission capacity, demand is rising for "on-site power" — self-owned generation facilities located near the data center site.

Fuel cells have emerged as an alternative to meet this demand, thanks to their short installation times and ability to be scaled up in stages. Riding this trend, HyAxiom secured KRW 823.6 billion worth of orders in roughly two weeks.

Capitalizing on this boom is expected to accelerate Doosan's long-held ambition of listing HyAxiom on the Nasdaq. HyAxiom had targeted a Nasdaq listing last year, but that has yet to materialize.

Because the convertible preferred share investment secured in July 2023 carries a clause triggering a put option if the company fails to go public within five years, the target listing date is presumed to fall by 2028.

Analysts interpret this as an effort to use the order boom to boost HyAxiom's scale and performance, stabilize its finances, and build a case for going public.

A similar formula has worked before. Rival Bloom Energy, leveraging a wave of large orders from AI data centers, moved from a quarterly loss of USD 300 million to near-breakeven within 18 months. Its non-GAAP operating margin stood at 17.1% in the fourth quarter of 2025.

However, HyAxiom's current cumulative order backlog of about USD 600 million (KRW 823.6 billion) is only about one-thirtieth the size of Bloom Energy's USD 20 billion (KRW 27.45 trillion) backlog, leaving it unclear whether this boom can build enough scale to actually deliver a listing.

A Doosan official said, "With demand from AI data centers and similar sources going well, HyAxiom is now pursuing sales aggressively."

Jung Jina (urzinnie@fntimes.com)