Firmus is Biggering & Biggering – Part 3

Graphic above – Firmus Technologies – Project Southgate – investor presentation Morgans Financial Limited, August 2025.

Tasmanian Times asked Firmus 37 questions to clarify what Project Southgate actually is.

Among them were queries about the nameplate capacity of each of the three AI factories (St. Leonards, Longreach, and Wesley Vale). We asked if there were plans to build more Firmus AI factories in Tasmania and if there was any truth to the rumour that the Tasmanian government had offered them $500 million in financial support. We asked about their claims of 99 per cent less water usage and why they’re exploring using seawater for cooling in Singapore. We asked what the credit rating and interest rate of their debt to Blackstone is, and how and where they measure ambient temperature (which is when the external water switches on).

We also asked  many detailed technical questions around the chips they use and the racks they use and how the racks are configured. Additionally,  we asked about their Hypercubes and about energy supply from renewable energy sources.

We  asked social questions about Firmus’ approach to Tasmania as well, and how they’re planning on gaining social license for their AI Factories.

Amid growing public discussion around Project Southgate, we offered to help clarify or correct aspects of the public record. Some of the confusion, we noted, appears to originate from multiple inconsistent statements made by Firmus itself.

Firmus requested an extension to our deadline (COB Wednesday), asking for additional time until Friday. We agreed to a Friday midday deadline and we added a question regarding its mainland expansion plans. We followed up by phone at 9:30am on Friday to confirm whether the new deadline would be met. We were told the company was working on responses and would get back to us.

No response was received at all.

It may appear that several of the questions we raised relate to information already in the public domain or contained within development applications. However, in reviewing Firmus’ public statements, interviews and presentations over the past 12 months, there appear to be inconsistencies in Firmus’ own communications.

For example, in an Australian Financial Review article (8 June 2026), the company states the St. Leonards site will contain 364 racks; however, in an interview on Rampart Talks (19 March 2026), the co-CEO states St. Leonards will have 512 racks. At an estimated $5.3 million per rack, this represents a significant ($784 million) difference in projected scale, with major implications for energy demand, and water usage. This isn’t a glitch in discussion on scoping. This is a site in mid construction.

As public debate around Project Southgate intensifies – including a parliamentary online petition and growing discussion around AI data centres – Firmus appears to have entered a more cautious phase of engagement. Or maybe this is the strategy?

Ironically the two sites they have chosen for their largest AI factories (Long Reach and Wesley Vale) were ground zero in the Forestry Wars. The book on this topic is a must-read for any company wishing to develop large projects in Tasmania.

Tasmanian Times will continue to report on the project as further information becomes available, even if details remain limited or incomplete.

We will leave today’s update with the following gem of an observation.

At the end of May, we raised questions about the data connection from Tasmania to mainland Australia because it seemed to us that the existing infrastructure created a bottleneck for Project Southgate and the delivery of AI Tokens into the international market. On 2 June 2026, Firmus and SUBCO announced an agreement “to build a new submarine fibre optic cable connecting Tasmania to mainland Australia, significantly expanding the state’s digital capacity and supporting the next generation of AI infrastructure.”

More recently, we have been watching the blow up around how much of the state’s power Project Southgate would use. While using Tasmania’s energy creates a customer for Tasmania’s economic engine (Hydro Tasmania, Aurora Energy, and Tas Networks), it also creates a bottleneck for the expansion of Project Southgate. We will explore the economic realities for Tasmania in a future post.

The graphic at the top of the page was taken from an investor presentation done at Morgans Financial Limited office in August 2025. It clearly shows the St Leonards and Longreach sites, and also shows the 1260MW North East Wind Project (marked as 1.2GW Wind Project 2026-2030). It also shows the 288MW solar project at Georgetown (shown as 280MW). Interestingly the graphic  doesn’t show the Wesley Vale site.

The North East Wind Project (NEWP) sits next to the operating Cape Portland Wind Project (75per cent owned by a Chinese state-owned entity and 25per cent owned by Hydro Tasmania). The NEWP comprises two areas (Rushy Lagoon and Waterhouse) where approximately 210 large wind turbines are planned across both areas.

NEWP is owned by a significant player in the Australian energy market, ACEN Australia, which is a subsidiary of ACEN Corporation, which in turn is owned by Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corporation.

The feature image above shows the transmission lines from NEPW running to the St. Leonards site, when in fact the NEWP study shows transmission lines running to the Longreach site where Firmus’ 288MW (?) AI factory is seeking DA approval.

We expect Firmus to announce an agreement to underwrite the development of the North East Wind Project in the very near future.

The NEWP, combined with the SUBCO fibre optic cable, rounds out the future proofing of Project Southgate in energy and delivery of AI tokens into the market. On one hand the big picture thinking and ability of Firmus to pull it all off has to be admired. But we are still asking about the reality on the ground for Tasmania and Tasmanians? We will delve more into the long term strategy in a future post.

If Firmus do build the NEWP, the downside for Tasmania would be lost future income from Hydro energy generation, transmission and firming. There goes the biggest ticket economic item we expected to get from the Firmus story so far. That is unless Hydro become a part owner of the NEWP on similar terms to the Cape Portland Wind Project.

Now for the water hurdle…this is where it gets really interesting!

North East Wind Project – Transmission Lines to Longreach

UPDATE 29/06/2026: Firmus did come back to us with answers to some of our questions late on Saturday morning. We’ll go through these answers and update our commentary in Part 4

On nameplate capacity, water usage and AI token generation, Firmus answered:

“The nameplate design capacity of each facility at full build-out will be represented by the planned grid connection capacity under the network connection agreement. Annual water consumption is based on engineering and modelling against average Tasmanian climate data. Token throughput depends heavily on model size and utilisation assumptions and is not a fixed engineering parameter; it varies significantly with the models deployed and workload mix.”

St Leonards – Power: 100MW  and annual water consumption of approximately 3.39ML

George Town/Bell Bay – Power: 300MW and annual water consumption of approximately 8.7ML

Wesley Vale – Power: 25MW and annual water consumption: Firmus expects to service our process water requirements using treated rainwater collected onsite.

On the key questions we asked around Firmus seeking a deal on the NEWP, the blanket answer was “no comment”

All other questions were either answered as PR speak, commercial in confidence or we don’t disclose that.

Part 1 of this series looks at the Firmus corporate

Part 2 of this series gives global context.

Part 3 of this series delves into the Firmus strategy.

Part 4 of this series looks the each AI Factory

Part 5 of this series will look at the pros and cons for Tasmania

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