Project Southgate Tasmania: FAQs

Yes, the total amount of energy is large. Having said that, Southgate will use hydro, wind and solar power, just like other major industries in the region. By becoming part of the grid as a new generation baseload user, Southgate helps support long-term investment in clean energy and can actually help lower electricity costs over time.

No, Southgate connects to high-capacity substations used by industry and doesn’t affect residential power. Additionally, by using a steady amount of power, Southgate can help bring energy prices down over time by sharing the cost of power infrastructure with more users - instead of it falling mostly on households and small businesses.

A very limited amount of water is used. The Southgate AI Factory is designed to operate without using any water at all for most of the year. Water is only used for cooling on hot days above 26°C, which, based on historical weather data in Launceston, is around 10 days per year. Even then, the amount used is minimal, just a fraction of what traditional data centres use. We have also designed the facility to capture and reuse rainwater within the facility. Over a year, Southgate’s water usage is predicted to be more than 99% lower than a typical cloud facility. In a day, on average over the year, the Firmus design uses about the same water as one household shower.

Southgate AI Factories are designed specifically for artificial intelligence, which requires a different kind of infrastructure. By designing the systems together — including cooling, power and computing — we can run more efficiently and reduce energy and water use compared to traditional data centres.

We build our own electrical and cooling system called The Firmus Hypercube, co-designed in alignment with NVIDIA DSX architecture. It uses liquid cooling to remove heat more efficiently than traditional air systems, allowing higher performance with lower energy use and minimal water. These proprietary Hypercubes are rolled out inside our AI Factories and manufactured in Australia. 

The Southgate facility has been designed to meet all planning and environmental requirements set by Tasmanian authorities. The data centre has been designed not to exceed background noise levels at adjacent residential areas. We’ve acoustically treated as required and follow a strict noise management plan.

During construction: local trades, civil, and electrical contractors. After launch: tech ops, maintenance, energy, security, and software engineering roles - with training support for young Tasmanians.

The first stage is expected to be up and running in 2026. The project will continue to grow over time in stages, depending on demand and community feedback. It’s designed to be a long-term part of Tasmania’s future.

Firmus is an Australian technology company designing, building and deploying energy-efficient infrastructure for AI. We began as a research & development company in Tasmania 7 years ago. We're working with local and global partners to create a new kind of digital industry, one that’s clean, transparent, and built to benefit Australia.

Firmus has operating infrastructure in Singapore and multiple AI Factories underway in Australia. Some are built inside existing data centres, with the majority of our future capacity being new builds in regional areas.

All Firmus facilities use liquid cooled HyperCube technology. In Tasmania, the system uses direct-to-chip liquid cooling designed for next-generation NVIDIA platforms, including GB300 and Vera Rubin. These facilities are designed to be multi-generational, supporting evolving AI hardware over the next decade and beyond.

In Singapore, the Hypercube system is configured to use a different type of liquid cooling in its primary cooling loop - immersion cooling, compatible to local conditions and the computing platform deployed in it, which includes L40/H200 NVIDIA GPU based systems.

Please reach out to community@firmus.co and we'll be in touch.