What
An 800 MW sovereign-compute program at CleanCo's Swanbank Energy Precinct (Ipswich, QLD) — GPUs behind the meter on firmed power, cooled by the site's own reservoir. Built in stages, starting with a 2 MW pilot.
Q1 deal room·Confidential·2026
Q1: 800 MW of sovereign compute.
Welcome to the deal room.
Australia's AI runs on foreign-owned compute. Q1 changes that: an 800 MW sovereign-compute program on a former power-station site outside Brisbane — with the power, the cooling and the grid connection already there. The first cheque (~AUD $116M) switches on a working 2 MW pilot.
Everything you need to evaluate it is on this page — the story, the numbers, and the documents.
The deal in sixty seconds
Why now
GPU contracts rose ~40% in six months on sold-out capacity — and Google and Anthropic now pay SpaceX ~US$26B/yr for rented compute. Buyers who can't put regulated workloads on foreign clouds have even fewer options. Demand is structural; sovereign supply barely exists.
The first cheque
~AUD $116M (all-equity worst case) energises ~2,850 GPUs and pays back in ~2.4 years on today's rental prices. Most of it buys GPUs — a resaleable asset, so vendor finance can shrink the equity needed.
Who's behind it
AloomU.au — the Australian-owned AI switch, live today. QGOV is the anchor (workloads live; QWork is the offtake channel), Logan City Council runs workloads today, and conversations with UQ and QUT are underway.
The market just proved the thesis
US$920M/moGoogle → SpaceX for ~110,000-GPU "bridge capacity" (Oct 2026–Jun 2029)
US$1.25B/moAnthropic → SpaceX/xAI, three-year compute lease
~US$26B/yrof frontier-lab money now renting third-party compute
The world's most sophisticated AI buyers — companies that build their own data centres — ran out of capacity in June 2026 and started renting at premium prices. Google's bundle works out to roughly US$8,400 per GPU per month; this deal's revenue assumption is ~A$1,500. If Google and Anthropic rent, sovereign buyers will rent — and none of that $26B buys a single sovereign Australian megawatt. (Primary source: SpaceX SEC Form FWP, filed against its S-1 — plus TechCrunch, Tom's Hardware, DCD, June 2026. Google's figure bundles GPUs, CPUs, memory and facility; not a like-for-like GPU-hour price.)
Cluster size — the deal Google signed vs the stages of Q1
| Cluster | GPUs | ~IT load | Context |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google ↔ SpaceX deal (SEC FWP) | ~110,000 | ~77 MW | Rents for US$920M/month — ~US$11B/yr |
| Q1 pilot (first cheque) | ~2,850 | 2 MW | ~A$116M all-in |
| Q1 build-out stage | ~142,000 | 100 MW | ≈ 1.3× the Google deal cluster |
| Q1 full program | ~1.1M | 800 MW | ≈ 7 Google-deal clusters, one site, one connection |
The cluster that made global headlines — and helped anchor SpaceX's IPO — fits inside one stage of Q1. Swanbank's 1.2 GW connection holds seven of them. GPU counts at our 80 kW-rack density; the SpaceX agreement also has teeth worth copying: capacity ramp pricing, a hard delivery deadline (Sep 30, 2026) and pro-rata fee reduction for shortfall — the contract shape Q1 offtake should mirror.
The ramp — how demand fills the capacity staircase
Each colour is an organisation; the stack is total demand growing over time. The dark staircase is available capacity — each step is built only when the stack underwrites it. Dots mark when the stack fills a tranche. The dashed band is unnamed pipeline (EOI register + future tenancies) — shown, but never counted as committed.
Square-root MW scale so the 2 MW pilot and the 800 MW program fit on one chart. QGOV's band anchors to the ~$1.17B/yr 2033 trajectory (≈47 MW at A$25m/MW/yr). Want to reshape it? The deal builder has the same chart with sliders →
The numbers that matter
~$50Mannual revenue at the pilot (2,850 GPUs · 85% utilised)
~$41MEBITDA — an ~83% margin
~2.4 yrsimple payback on ~$98M capex
<3%of revenue goes to electricity — power is the moat, not the cost
1.2 GWgrid connection on site — Q1's 800 MW fits inside it
Stabilised year-1, before financing, tax and ramp-up. Every assumption is editable in the financial model below — and stress-tested down to $1.80/GPU-hr and 65% utilisation. Prefer to explore it live? Open the deal builder →
The business case — to Queensland Treasury's BCDF
Q1 is written as a tier-1 business case in the buyer's own framework: Queensland Treasury's Business Case Development Framework and the Gateway Review Process, developed through the Five Case Model (strategic · economic · commercial · financial · management). Start with the executive summary, follow the SBC→PBC→DBC evidence chain, and see how it holds against the gates.
Investment memo
Executive summary
the case in one pageThesis, the ~A$116M ask, returns (~27% pre-tax IRR), moat, traction, top risks and the decision sought.
Read the summaryAddressed — Gate 0
Strategic Business Case
BCDF Stage 1 · service needWhy sovereign compute, why now: the problem, regulatory alignment (SOCI/APRA/AUKUS), QGOV demand, investment logic.
Read the SBCAddressed — Gate 1
Preliminary Business Case
BCDF Stage 2 · options analysisWhy Swanbank beat colo and greenfield; cooling, power and staging to a preferred reference project.
Read the PBCIn progress — Gate 2→3
Detailed Business Case
BCDF Stage 3 · five-case evidenceStrategic · economic (CBA/BCR) · commercial · financial (P&L, funding, DSCR, returns) · management; quantified risk; the investment decision.
Open the live DBCWeb · investment memo
Executive summary
The whole case in one page — thesis, ask, returns, risks, decision.
Read the summaryWeb · assurance
Gateway readiness
RAG readiness across the six gates + the independent-assurance program.
Assurance & readinessAssurance
Gateway readiness
RAG · independent reviewReadiness against all six gates, plus the independent-assurance program (model audit, IE, technical/market DD, probity).
Assurance & readinessGateway assurance cross-walk — where Q1 sits against the six gates:
| Gate | Gateway review | What it tests | Product | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Strategic assessment | Service need substantiated | SBC | Addressed |
| 1 | Preliminary evaluation | Options analysed; preferred option selected | PBC | Addressed |
| 2 | Business case | Detailed five-case evidence | DBC | In progress |
| 3 | Contract award / investment decision | Executed terms + tenancy; capital committed | DBC | Pending — CPs open |
| 4 | Readiness for service | Pilot energised; switch cutover | Wave 2 | Future |
| 5 | Benefits realisation | Utilisation proven; Customer #2; QGOV value | Wave 3–4 | Future |
Q1's ~A$116M pilot sits above QT's $100M Gateway threshold. The staircase is gate-built: each step (2 MW → 20 MW → 100 MW → 800 MW) carries its own investment decision on proven utilisation. BCDF/Gateway alignment is presentational (buyer-legibility); it is not a representation that a government Gateway review has been conducted.
The documents
PDF · 9 slides
Pitch deck
The whole story in nine slides — the thesis, the site, the flywheel, the economics, the ask. Start here.
Download PDF PowerPoint version →PDF · 1 page
Deal summary
One page for a quick read: headline economics, commercial terms, use of funds, the runway and the ask.
Download PDFXLSX · editable
Financial model
Six tabs, every assumption a yellow editable cell — P&L, build-out staircase, sensitivity grid, use of funds.
Download modelInteractive
Deal builder
Assemble the demand stack and the offtake tenancy schedule — QWork as the anchor tenancy — then flex the economics. Sliders for everything; your assembly saves in the browser.
Open the builderPDF · 2 pages
Company one-pager
The company case for cofounders and early investors — problem, insight, moat, risks and the hire.
Download PDFWeb
Full investor briefing
The complete written briefing — site detail, commercial structure, milestones, and the things we say plainly.
Read the briefingWeb · BCDF Stage 1
Strategic Business Case
The substantiated service need for sovereign compute — Gateway Gate 0. Start of the QT-aligned business case.
Read the SBCWeb · BCDF Stage 2
Preliminary Business Case
Options analysis to a preferred reference project — siting, cooling, power, staging. Gateway Gate 1.
Read the PBCWeb · BCDF Stage 3
Detailed Business Case — live
The evidence to invest as a live register: economic, financial, commercial, risk, management — and the investment decision. Gateway Gate 2→3.
Open the live DBCAll documents are confidential drafts, figures directional and pre-final-terms. Land-lease rate, firmed energy price and hardware quotes are in negotiation and marked TBC where they appear.
The site, in plain terms
Power
385 MW of firm gas generation plus a 250 MW / 500 MWh battery that's been operational since February 2026. The precinct was built to make power; we put compute next to it.
Cooling
The old power station's cooling reservoir becomes our heat sink — a closed loop that recirculates non-potable water. Zero drinking water per token.
Grid
Up to 1.2 GW of connection capacity, including a new 275 kV substation. A 100 MW campus — huge by global standards — uses under 10% of it.
Landlord
CleanCo, Queensland-government-owned, actively redeveloping the precinct and looking for exactly this kind of tenant. 11 km from Ipswich; on Brisbane's doorstep.
Three things we say before you ask
The gas question. Yes, the site's firm generation is gas. Our framing is battery-first, with gas as transitional firming on CleanCo's clean-energy trajectory. We don't claim the pilot runs on 100% renewables — we claim the cheapest firmed sovereign megawatts in the country.
The offtake question. Queensland Government workloads run on AloomU today, QWork — QGOV's flagship system — is the named offtake channel with live integration, and Logan City Council runs workloads today. UQ and QUT conversations are underway. Offtake is structured as tenancies — term agreements over firmed-MW blocks, a compute rent roll — and QWork is Tenancy 01, the anchor. But no tenancy is signed yet: channels live, volumes and tenancy docs in negotiation.
The PFAS question. The site has legacy firefighting-foam contamination, publicly acknowledged by CleanCo. Our closed-loop design neither consumes nor discharges dam water — contained by construction, scoped with CleanCo's environmental team before any build.