At a glance

  • Firmus says its Brooklyn cluster in Melbourne has been installed, tested and handed over, and is running a customer's AI models.
  • The 2 March contract covers about 18,400 NVIDIA GB300 processors for a buyer Firmus describes as a leading global technology company.
  • Benmax makes the modules at a Queanbeyan plant in southern New South Wales, and Firmus says the parts inside were manufactured in regional Australia.
  • CDC runs two Melbourne data centre campuses, at Brooklyn and Laverton, and named Firmus among the customers and partners using its Melbourne infrastructure.
  • Project Southgate is planned across Tasmania, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Perth, and Firmus targets 1.6GW in Australia by 2028.

Firmus Technologies, one of the neocloud companies in Australia that build AI computing capacity and sell it as a service, has raised more than US$3 billion of equity in twelve months and holds a US$10 billion debt facility. It signed a multi-billion dollar contract for a Melbourne AI site on 2 March. On 27 August the company said that site has been installed, commissioned and handed over, and is running a customer's AI models.

Commissioning is the testing that proves a facility runs before it is signed over to whoever will use it. Firmus said all three steps happened "in recent days", in a post on its LinkedIn page, and calls the deployment its Brooklyn cluster. CDC supplies the physical data centre infrastructure for Project Southgate, and runs two Melbourne campuses, at Brooklyn and Laverton. Firmus said in its October 2025 Southgate expansion release that the Melbourne processors had been ordered and were expected to come online by April 2026.

Firmus contracted about 18,400 processors for Melbourne in March

Firmus' 2 March release described the buyer as "a leading global technology company" and put the agreement at "approximately 18,400 NVIDIA GB300 GPUs to be deployed at the Melbourne facility". The GB300 is NVIDIA's Blackwell Ultra generation, sold as a whole rack of connected chips, and it needs liquid cooling.

w.media reported the Melbourne contract as a 150MW initial phase valued at A$4.5 billion. w.media and DCD both put the processor count at about 18,500, against 18,400 in Firmus' release. Firmus deploys the hardware in the HyperCube, a factory-made module carrying the liquid cooling, pipework and electrical fit-out an AI data centre needs, craned into place rather than built on site.

CDC is building the Brooklyn campus toward more than 350MW

Brooklyn is an industrial suburb in Melbourne's west. CDC's Melbourne page says the campus there has operated since 2024 and is expected to provide over 350MW "upon completion", with the BK1 building "fully operational, catering to the highest density customer demand" and the remaining facilities under construction. A second CDC campus at Laverton will add over 400MW when complete, CDC says, and both sit on the Melbourne data centre infrastructure map.

CDC held the campus's official opening in February 2026, and its release listed Firmus among the "key customers and technology partners" using its infrastructure, alongside Deakin University, Monash University and NVIDIA. Monash's MAVERIC supercomputer, built on NVIDIA GB200 NVL72 racks with Dell, has run research work at Brooklyn since June 2026.

Firmus puts HyperCube manufacture at a Queanbeyan plant

The regional manufacturing Firmus describes points to Queanbeyan in southern New South Wales, where Benmax runs a 7,000 square metre manufacturing plant on Endurance Avenue. Firmus says Benmax has been the manufacturing partner behind the HyperCube since 2020, co-designing and producing successive generations of the platform. Benmax runs a second assembly facility at Hume in the ACT.

Firmus agreed in mid-August to buy Benmax's fabrication, design and projects businesses for A$300 million, and Benmax says completion is expected between the end of August and the end of September 2026, subject to conditions. Firmus said on 7 August that it had secured full commitments for a US$2 billion equity round at a valuation above US$10.5 billion. That release named Coatue and NVIDIA as follow-on participants, with Blackstone Tactical Opportunities and Jane Street coming in as new holders.

What to watch

The Melbourne numbers. Firmus has made the handover claim on LinkedIn and has published no newsroom release on it. The customer's identity, the computing power Firmus says is running and the share of the processors installed are all still to come.

Bell Bay. George Town Council approved Firmus' 288MW Bell Bay proposal on 25 August 2026, voting 6-1 in favour. The conditions cover noise, air quality, bushfire planning and diesel generator use, and anyone who lodged a formal comment on the proposal has 14 days to appeal to the Tasmanian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.

St Leonards. Firmus' anchor Tasmanian site outside Launceston was approved by the City of Launceston in September 2025 and carries a company target of late 2026 for first operation.