Jun 20, 2026 | Posted by Abdul-Rahman Oladimeji
Australian AI cloud and data center company Firmus is expanding its presence in Tasmania, with plans for a campus in Bell Bay and a potential second site in Wesley Vale. A development application has been lodged for the Bell Bay project, which the company describes as an “AI factory” to be built on the former Gunns Pulp Mill site.
“We plan to construct two purpose-built AI data hall buildings, an office building, and a maintenance workshop, all within the existing cleared industrial platform,” the company says.
The George Town site, known as the Long Reach Data Centre, is planned as a 288MW facility using direct-to-chip liquid cooling and existing 220kV power infrastructure. It will be built on the former Gunns pulp mill site, a project that was abandoned after Gunns entered liquidation in 2013. Firmus has yet to reveal details of its proposed Wesley Vale development but said it is continuing to assess sites in both regions as part of its expansion plans.
Project Southgate is Firmus’ plan to build sovereign AI infrastructure in Australia, targeting 1.6GW of capacity by 2028. The company, founded in 2019, has shifted from crypto and HPC to AI factories using its liquid-cooled HyperCube system. It is developing a 90MW Launceston data center (scalable to ~400MW) and a Tasmania campus planned to host about 36,800 Nvidia GB300 GPUs from 2026. It is also expanding across major Australian cities with partners including CDC.