History
A small helium-focused SPAC merger in 2024 pivoted to AI data centers in Texas, funded first by dilutive financing and then a Macquarie loan facility of up to $290M, ending with a restatement.
2024: A small SPAC merger
The story began as a blank-cheque deal. Roth CH Acquisition V, a shell company with roughly $17.5 million left in trust after earlier redemptions, planned to merge with New Era Helium, owner of the Pecos Slope gas field in New Mexico, which intended to build its own processing plant there. A Nasdaq rule gave the shell 36 months from listing to finish a deal, and a filing in October warned that going beyond 30 November 2024 would bring suspension and delisting. The merger closed in early December 2024, and the company traded on Nasdaq as NEHC under CEO E. Will Gray II. The shell had 4.9 million shares outstanding at the record date. New Era Helium's holders received 8.9 million shares, and 2.4 million more shares were issued to holders of bridge debentures when they converted.
As the merger closed, the company signed a $75 million equity purchase facility and $10 million of senior secured convertible notes with an institutional investor. The notes carried a 7% original issue discount and were secured on all company assets.
2025: Pivot, pressure and a stalled plant
Six weeks after listing, the company formed a 50/50 joint venture, Texas Critical Data Centers (TCDC), with Sharon AI to build a 250MW gas-fired data center in the Permian Basin. It also drew a second $3 million note under its financing facility. In July 2025 the venture closed its first land purchase, 235 acres in Ector County, Texas.
The helium business went the other way. Matheson Tri-Gas ended its agreement to buy half the plant's output in July 2025 after the plant missed its 1 July start-up deadline. In October, AirLife Gases also terminated its supply contract, forcing a $2.4 million payment. The Pecos Slope plant was not coming online as planned.
Nasdaq warnings piled up. In March the company's market value was found below the $50 million minimum, and in May two more notices came for publicly held shares below $15 million and a bid price under $1.00. The company missed the September deadline and faced delisting unless it won a hearing before Nasdaq's panel. By then it had been renamed New Era Energy & Digital (NUAI). The record does not show how the panel process ended.
In October the company terminated the equity facility, which had been expanded to $1 billion two months earlier, saying it was "sufficiently capitalized". A week later it took a $4 million bridge loan at 18% interest from shareholder Joel Solis, secured on the data-center land. In November TCDC agreed to buy another 203 acres for about $5.1 million, making 438 contiguous acres.
2025-2026: Buying out Sharon AI
On 29 December 2025 the company agreed to buy Sharon AI's 50% of TCDC for $70 million: $10 million in cash, $10 million in stock and a $50 million convertible note. The buyout closed in January 2026, giving full ownership. The company also amended warrants held by its original financing lender, now named as ATW AI Infrastructure II LLC, to clear the way, and announced a co-development partnership with Primary Digital Infrastructure.
2026: Real financing, then a restatement
On 8 April 2026 TCDC signed a senior secured term loan facility of up to $290 million with Macquarie Equipment Capital, of which only $20 million is committed. On 10 April the company closed the underwritten public offering the facility required, issued extra shares to Sharon AI and Zachary Zhou, and moved to prepay the Sharon AI note early. Shares outstanding reached 93.5 million, about ten times the count after the 2024 merger.
On 30 July 2026 the company disclosed a restatement of its first-quarter 2026 results. About $1.4 million of deal costs had been wrongly expensed instead of deferred, and the $23.5 million grant-date fair value of executive performance stock units was understated by an amount not yet quantified. A material weakness in internal controls was acknowledged, and the accounting for the TCDC acquisition was also under review. As of that date, the company was a data-center developer with full ownership of TCDC, while its original helium business had stalled.
Written from the 20 story beats below (2024 to 30 July 2026), which come from the company's own announcements and filings.