Firmus Technologies announced it has received commitments for a further AUD 500 million equity raise to accelerate the national rollout of Project Southgate, its flagship AI infrastructure initiative with scale up to 1.6 gigawatts through 2028. The move follows the September announcement that it had raised AUD 330 million in equity funding to accelerate construction of its flagship Project Southgate in Launceston, Tasmania.
The latest round has been priced at a post-money valuation of approximately AUD 6 billion. The proceeds of the raise will enable further site development, infrastructure deployment, and energy partnerships across selected locations, including Tasmania, Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Perth.
“This raise allows us to deliver on the next phase of Project Southgate – expanding beyond Tasmania into four major mainland regions,” said Firmus co-CEO Oliver Curtis. “We’re manufacturing a new class of AI infrastructure, on Australian soil, that is purpose-built for scale, performance, and sustainability. This means high value local jobs and a critical piece of sovereign capability for Australia.”
“We’ve spent years developing a vertically integrated AI Factory platform that can scale more efficiently than traditional approaches,” said co-CEO Tim Rosenfeld. “With demand for AI infrastructure accelerating, this funding ensures we can meet it quickly, cost-effectively, and in line with Australia’s renewable energy future.”
The co-CEOs added the expansion will include a major direct investment into Australia’s economy and growing the advanced manufacturing sector, creating high-value jobs and industrial growth over the next 12 months and beyond.
Morgans acted as sole lead manager, with Highbury Partnership serving as financial advisor. “Firmus is clearly entering a new phase after signing both the CDC Data Centre alliance, and Nvidia as a customer. It’s the kind of traction that gives investors confidence in the company’s ability to deliver,” said Morgans executive director Rob Douglas.
The September funding round which was materially upsized, was led by Ellerston Capital with participation from Nvidia and strong backing from Australian institutional and high-net-worth investors. Morgans acted as sole lead manager, with Highbury Partnership as financial advisor.
Project Southgate, a multibillion-dollar development in Tasmania’s new Green AI Factory Zone, will be delivered in partnership with the Tasmanian government. The site will house 36,000 Nvidia GPUs across two stages and is designed for compute density, energy efficiency and AI workload flexibility.
Five-hectare site
The flagship facility, approved by Launceston Council in July, will be built on a five-hectare site in St Leonards. Stage 1 will deliver 90MW of AI infrastructure by 2026, beginning with a 44MW phase and expanding to 90MW before a planned second stage of 300MW. Conditions have been imposed to manage environmental and community impacts, including landscaping, stormwater treatment and noise controls.
Firmus’s modular “liquid-everywhere” AI Factory platform is designed to evolve with Nvidia’s latest technologies, including Spectrum-X Ethernet networking and Nemotron open models. The company says its system consumes up to 60% less energy and costs around half as much to build as traditional data centres, making AI compute more cost-efficient.