NVIDIA 'pod' data centres coming to Australia

Australian data centre startup WinDC is preparing to set up NVIDIA’s modular AI factories at various regional Australian locations. If all goes to plan, this will amount to a total of 230 MW in AI computing capacity.

Founded in 2019, WinDC has partnered with US company Armada, which is one of a small group of companies chosen to build NVIDIA’s DSX Pods worldwide. WinDC will provide prepared sites and power for the data centres Armada builds based on the DSX Pod design.

WinDC’s ‘Leviathan’ modular AI factory (Render).

The DSX Pod is a blueprint for complete AI factories that are built, tested and shipped ready to run, powered by NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin architecture. According to NVIDIA, they can be operational at a prepared site in about 14 days.

WinDC commissioned its first Armada unit in January and announced an initial 11 MW program in March.

WinDC said it connects ‘behind the meter’ at the point of generation, putting electricity that is currently wasted to work, and avoiding a multi-year wait for new grid connections. Customers bring their own NVIDIA hardware, Armada supplies the modular factories, and WinDC delivers the land, power and local operations.

“Speed is the new scale in the era of superintelligence [SI],” said WinDC founder and CEO Andrew Sjoquist.

“The race is won on time to power. WinDC and Armada skip the grid queue and build compute at the energy source, delivering capacity across Australia in months, not years.”

Armada co-founder and CEO Dan Wright added: “Companies and nations can have the chips, the land, the power and the ambition, and still be told to wait years for a building.

“The NVIDIA DSX POD reference design lets us cut that wait out of the equation. We build the SI factory in one of our Galleon Forge factories, ship it, connect it, and our customers are generating tokens in months, on infrastructure they own and control.”

Top image caption: WinDC’s modular AI factory on the road. Images: Supplied