Australia's largest AI data centre heads to Tasmania
Tasmania approves AI Factory Zone powered by ultra-efficient immersion cooling.
Tasmania has approved the creation of an AI Factory Zone in Northern Tasmania, which will house Project Southgate, a purpose-built AI data centre campus by Firmus Technologies. This would be Australia's largest AI data centre, potentially reaching 390MW.
Having previously seen the company's immersion cooling technology at work in a Singapore data centre, I can say it offers unbeatable energy efficiency.
Project Southgate
According to news reports, the privately-funded Project Southgate will be implemented in three stages, with Stage 1a and Stage 1b approved.
Stage 1a will deliver 44MW, Stage 1b adds 46MW, and Stage 2 could bring another 300MW. Up to AU$2.1 billion is expected to be invested by Firmus in Stage 1a over 12 months, according to the official release, with completion as soon as 2026.
In June this year, Firmus raised AU$280 million from a private group of institutional, high-net-worth, and strategic investors. Part of this will presumably go into Southgate. Earlier reports cited plans to go public on the Australian Stock Exchange, though no timeline was shared.
Green AI through immersion cooling
As noted earlier, Firmus specialises in immersion cooling. But instead of deploying GPU servers within standalone tanks, its proprietary system has as many as 12 tanks lined up in a row.
The flow of dielectric liquid between tanks is carefully managed through clever pipework and convection circulation, powered by just one pump at the end. Two rows operated within the same data hall, and additional pipework offers concurrent maintainability for the pumps, each of which typically operates at 50% load.
In independently validated test results, Firmus Technologies' immersion cooling was found to consume almost half the power of a similar air-cooled setup, as well as beating direct-to-chip cooling.
Photo Credit: Paul Mah. SMC's deploying in STT GDC Singapore 6 data centre.
Energy efficiency matters
In this case, Firmus is building a green AI data centre, leveraging its energy efficiency and access to renewable power in Tasmania. Of course, there are two ways to get more AI work (tokens) per watt. One is to improve energy efficiency, the other is to purchase the latest Nvidia GPUs. Ideally, you'd do both.
One downside of immersion cooling is its slower time-to-market due to the extensive work needed to prepare servers for immersion. New GPUs do offer an advantage though. For example, Nvidia's latest Blackwell B200 GPU delivers over twice the performance-per-watt compared to the older H200.
Firmus Technologies' immersion cooling technology, which I witnessed firsthand at SMC's Singapore data centre earlier this year, could be the differentiator that makes this work. Halving the power consumption of traditional cooling while handling extreme GPU densities is exactly what's needed for sustainable AI infrastructure.
On its part, the approval of a 390MW AI Factory Zone represents a significant bet by Tasmania on becoming an AI hub. With abundant renewable hydroelectric power and cooler climate, Tasmania offers natural advantages for energy-intensive AI workloads. Could Tasmania become an unexpected player in the global AI infrastructure race?
