October 29, 2025
Australian artificial intelligence firm Maincode has announced a major expansion, planning to deploy a new high-performance computing facility equipped with AMD hardware within a Telstra data center in Melbourne.
The project, dubbed "MC-2," represents a AU$30 million (US$19.2 million) investment and is scheduled to launch in January 2026. The new data center will be housed at a Telstra-owned campus in the Clayton area of Melbourne, a facility with a total capacity of approximately 12MW.
In a strategic move, Maincode will utilize AMD technology for its deployment instead of the industry-dominant Nvidia. The installation is set to feature AMD Instinct MI355 accelerators, AMD EPYC 9575F server CPUs, and the AMD ROCm software stack.
Dave Lemphers, Maincode's co-founder and CEO, framed the project as a significant step for Australian-made AI. “Chatbot LLMs are incredible writers, but purpose-built models are the ones that reason, decide, and deliver,” Lemphers stated on LinkedIn. “That’s what we’re building with our new $30 million MC-2 Model Factory, Australian-made AI engineered for real-world intelligence.”
He further emphasized to press that “MC-2 is more than an expansion, it’s a statement of belief. We’re not chasing size for its own sake. We’re building advanced, focused models that actually work.”
The MC-2 facility will support Maincode's flagship platform, Matilda, which was launched earlier this year and billed as Australia's first sovereign large language model, trained exclusively on Australian data. Details on the company’s initial MC-1 data center, which produced Matilda, have not been publicly disclosed.
The startup is majority-owned by Australian billionaire Ed Craven, the co-founder of online casino Stake.
Peter Chambers, Senior Director of OEM Sales for Asia-Pacific Japan and Country Manager for Australia at AMD, endorsed the project, saying, “With our latest generations of GPUs, CPUs, and software stacks, MC-2 is designed to deliver frontier AI performance with exceptional energy efficiency. We’re proud to support Maincode in driving locally led innovation with global reach.”
Telstra operates a portfolio of data centers across Australia, offering colocation services in cities including Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide. The telecom giant has also established partnerships with major operators like Digital Realty, Equinix, and NextDC to extend its service footprint.
SOURCE DCD
