The Chaser Report - Psst, Anyone Wanna Buy A Data Centre?

Episode Date: October 26, 2026

For Dom and Charles' first episode that's also available as video, they're talking about the massive crash in the Australian data centre market. Could these two things be linked? Obviously.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. And Charles, I have an amazing investment opportunity for you. I have some shares in a data centre. I'm willing to sell them to you for 25% below what I paid. Oh, wow. Dom, that sounds fantastic.

It's the opportunity. Because you know data centres is the next big thing. Yes, and I imagine that everyone who listens to the Chaser Report, or indeed watches the Chaser Report, now available on video. Now using much more space up in your local. I'm sure they're big fans of data centers. I mean, so many listeners just contact us every day talking about data center. I just want a data center near me.

They do. They want to move closer to data centers, just to reduce the latency on their gaming. I want to lose money on data centres, which is what you've done. We'll talk about the world of data centres and frankly the spectacular rollercoaster ride we've experienced. And a fantastic yarn, a really good yarn. After this brief interruption. Before we get into data centers, we should just say we're making our contribution to data centers, aren't we? We are filling up way more space per episode than we did before on YouTube, on Apple Podcasts.

We're planning to have video at some point too. I don't know whether this will be or not, but it's the whole new world of video and big data coming to the podcast at last. Isn't the new studio spiffy, by the way? We should just thank you, Charles, for organizing the whole. I just turned up. And it looks like this all of a sudden.

Do you like the bricks? Look at this. Isn't it? It's auto-switching, so we can't actually. Anyway, this is going to be terribly boring for all the listeners. It's an industrial setting. If at last, we're amongst the workers, Charles. This is a very visual episode.

Yeah, very visual episode. Anyway, let's get into the data center thing. So are we going to start talking about Firmus first? Let's get straight to the really good. Firmis, because this was going to be very exciting. Firmis was set to be the biggest IPO in Australian history after Telstra. Yes. They were going to raise $44 billion from investors to build Charles the future.

And Firmus began, I believe, its life as a crypto miner. And the concept was they were going to do. do it in Tazzi where it's nice and cool. And then before they could actually do that, crypto kind of died. Yeah. And so in the end, they ended up going, well, no, we're now going to do data centers. We've got to pivot.

Yep, pivot. Yeah. And the CEO of it, I believe, or certainly one of the senior figures behind it, is Oliver Curtis. Oliver Curtis, well-known jail inhabitant. Well, he was. He did two years in prison for Inside a Tristan. trading? Just a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of jail. He served one year in prison after good

behavior, after being sentenced to two, convicted of conspiracy to commit insider trading. So it's a redemption story or what's going to be a redemption story. He's also married to Roxy Jashenko, which is, I'm sure, less of a redemption story. Its own roller coaster ride. And so they had this whole plan to build this massive new data center business. Yep. And people got very cold feet. Ironically for a company that was selling calling technology, they got cold feet and they had to abandon the IPO. Yes, because what they said,

because they own one data center, didn't they? It was one data center and they went, we're worth $45 billion. Well, which I reckon is ballsy. Like, I mean, I sort of own a data center. I've got a computer running. You've got a hard drive podcast. Yes, you do.

I reckon that's worth at least, I don't know, $350 trillion. So the idea, look, I don't purport to understand this. And I think what we really need to do is... No, no, no, we're on a podcast. We've got to pretend. We're white men on a podcast.

I'm just quite a... We've got to literally, you know, just know everything. So it's important to know, it's a neocloud. It's not a data center that Firmus was selling. It's a neocloud for AI. And they had lots of potential clients, didn't know. Potential was the word, I think. Yeah.

But no, they had... They were going to sell tokens for AI processing rather than doing the traditional server acts. It was all GPUs. And their whole thing was we've got to deal with Nvidia. We're going to produce AI tokens cheaper than anyone else on the planet. And to be fair, they've been dealing with meta and open AI. They had big investors.

And yeah, they're in bed with Nvidia. They were still making a loss. No, but that's all right. That's good. That's what you do in AI. That's how you get more valuations. Yes. That's why SpaceX is worth like $3 trillion.

We'll do an episode on the SpaceX Tesla merger at some point. No, and why do you say we're going to do finance? No, we're not going to. That's terrible. We will after it all ends in tears. All right, so they're planning to turn a profit within two years. All that was their pitch. And investors went, no, no thanks.

Yeah. And got cold feet. So the good news is Charles. And the most embarrassing detail of that whole tale, because it started out where they were going, everyone's buying these shares at $11 because they're trying to do this thing called it's called filling the book right right so you're trying to raise a whole lot of money and so you ring around all your investment banker friends and your stockbroker friends

and you go hey everyone else is like buying shares at $11 do you want to buy shares at $11 right yeah and you try and sort of juice the price by literally it's a sort of simple marketing technique of saying well this is the price right And the firm that was running that whole operation and trying to get everyone to buy it had told the market on Monday morning that, yeah, pretty much it's the book's almost full. It's almost full. We've almost locked in the entire price at $11 per share, right? Valuing it at $45 billion. And then throughout the day, it suddenly, like, they rang back and it's like, oh, well, if you can't buy it for $11, do you want to just buy it for like $8?000?

$8 maybe. And then I think it went even down to $7 before the bank just abandoned the thing. We're just going to cut our losses and get out of here. So they're still going. There's an article from two days ago as we record this saying they're still trying to build three data centers in Tasmania. So it's certainly not over there. As long as they lose money.

Are they going to lose money? Look, who knows? Yes. The AI revolution on its way. So this has set the context, really, for what we're really talking about today, as Next DC. Yes. Why are we doing an AI episode for our first ever video episode?

No, I think irony is. No, because this is the greatest story ever, right? Okay. Next DC, so this is a little bit different to Firmus, right? So Firmis is a firm that doesn't really operate data centers. Yeah. It has big plans.

Big plans in Tasmania. NextD.C. is the biggest data center operator in Australia. See, that's where they went wrong. Yes. They built the data centers. It's all downhill once you've built them. You would have seen them. Like, they're actually everywhere.

They're often sort of dark grey buildings. They like dark grey, aren't they? Yeah. It's very Melbourne laneway, but it's absolutely massive. Yeah. And it looms over your suburb. And you sort of go, what does that building even do? Like, but they're sort of now everywhere.

And they, like at the beginning of last week, they were $7 billion. Yeah. And you might be wondering, why is it, you know, a fraction? of the price of firmers if they own far more data centers. Well, the answer is yes, they've got this terrible problem, which is that they actually make money. They've made the data centers. They've got 17.

They've got 17 data centers. With nine on the way. They're making hundreds of millions of dollars a year. It's sort of crazy how, like, actually profitable it is, which is just the stock market doesn't want to buy into just profitable firms that are well run. They're not a NeoCloud, Charles. You need to understand. They're not a neocloud.

They're not selling tokens. They're selling actual data centers. But this is one of Australia's biggest companies. It's in the top 100. Yeah. And they've cut. Well, it was in the top. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So then last week, so they made a whole lot of rosy predictions about, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to fucking supercharge this and just roll out a whole lot more data centers because everyone's using AI. Yeah. Let's just do that. And as a result, the stock price has been rising. quite rapidly, right? It has.

The point where it was like seven, worth seven billion dollars at the beginning of it last week. Then, right, they realized, they'd just built a data center in, like, suburban Melbourne. In West Footscray.

West Footscray. And they went, hang on, how do we plug this in? Like, how do we, you know, like, did anyone think about putting in a PowerPoint to, like,

I mean, electricity? We had exactly the same problem. problem earlier. When we were setting up the studio here, the new studio, we discovered that everything ran through one PowerPoint and you switched it off earlier. Yes, I know. I think that's what happened with Next DC was that they just had this one terminal and they

discovered they didn't have a long enough extension cable. What could happen to anybody? So what they did? No, so this is true. This is what happened is they went, okay, we'll just organise for an extra extension cable to come from the power station, I don't know, somewhere fairly close. And we'll just get them to run another cable to our data system. it will all be fine, right?

Yeah, why not? Just build, just plug in another cable. Too easy. Yep. And so they started doing this. Gemna is the sort of Oz grid of that part of the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like the wholesaler.

And so they started sort of building this thing down all the suburban streets of Footscray to try and reach the data center, right? And then we're talking poles and wires. Poles and wires. Poles and wires. Putting up the poles, putting it in another, basically a very, I think, They would have gone to Bunnings first to get the extension cord. Yeah, and you've got to get one of those heavy-duty ones.

Ideally, yellow. Yes. It's got to look a bit industrial. Yeah, I think so. So that's... Anyway, so then, and then, so this Gemnet truck turns a corner to try and put it in the next street along, right? And it comes across just all these cars that are parked in the middle of their road, right? And all the wheelie bins had been put out into the middle of the road.

Oh, no, that was that you're telling me? They try to install power poles and put up the power cable on bin night. On bin night. It should be on the council website, shouldn't it? Yeah. It's great council or whatever it is. So they go, oh, this is a bit of a problem. They talk to some of the residents and the residents are going, actually,

the reason why we've parked our cars in the middle of the street is to stop your cabling. We don't like your cabling because what they were doing is they had instead of, you know how electricity poles are about 11 minutes? You told me this. Yeah, yeah. They're 11 meters high. They were going, oh, well, with this extension cord, we're going to put it on 22 meter high cables, because I think it was a very heavy-duty extension cord, basically.

Yeah, they're much bigger. So they can carry 160 times the voltage of standard. But this is a really heavy-duty power pole. Yeah. And the footscravers and this was like, I don't want that through my street, right? So they just literally got out their cars and blocked the street. And so what ended happening is the workers then went, okay, well, I'll just call my boss and find out what to do.

And they go, okay, well, you're not going to be able to cable up the extension cable today, right? That's ridiculous. Charles, bin night ends one day later. And if you don't put your wheelie bin inside, you get to find it from the council. It's a 24-hour problem. They should have just waited. They should just waited 24 hours. This whole thing could have been avoided.

No, I think it was made very clear that they were not going to move their cars with their wheelie bins until the truck went away, right? Well, they should have got the bloody council garbage truck to come and tip all the wheelie bins. I mean, they're not going to stop. If the council truck comes, you've got to put the wheelie beans into the back of the thing. You know what they should have,

the residents should have done. What? They should have got line bikes. A giant pile of live bikes. No one's getting through them. It's impossible to remove that. Absolutely. So anyway, so they call up their boss and they go,

okay, well, you're not going to be able to do this today. Gemna then announces to, I think, to Next DC, right? That, okay, we've got delays on this whole project. We can't do this. We can't literally get you the power that you want. We've been defeated by Willie pins. Yeah. Right.

Then NextDC has to announce this to the stockmark and go, oh, by the way, you know that data center that we built turns out maybe won't be able to plug it in. right, at which point, next DC, valued at $7 billion, its share price plummet's 40%. Like, literally within minutes, right, of this announcement, because they're going, hang on,

if you're not going to be able to get your extension cord into Footscray, like, nobody else does. This is over. This is the AI bubble being burst in suburban footscray. The entire globe is going to. going to follow suit. But look at, I mean, this is apparently, and there's an article... This is a modern day story like the castle.

It is. I mean, tell them they're dreaming that they're going to get their extension cord past us. And there's actually an article here on News.com. That I use saying that this is set off a kind of global wave. It's not just in Australia. So do they have wheelie bins in other countries? I was just going to say. So in South Korea, a company called Elise has rebounded, has crashed 32%

it did then rebound 30%. But still, they're all, core weave, N scale, all these big data center companies are looking at the footscrow situation, I imagine,

and saying, well, we're in real trouble here. And Charles, what this tells me is that the smart investment in 2026 is not in data centers. That's done.

Oh, that's done. If you buy it a wheelie bin companies now, before the wheelie bin boom, you could make serious money for your investors. You're going to be hyperscaleing wheelie bins as far as I'm

But what investors really want is a wheelie bin company that doesn't actually make wheelie bins. Oh, they want a neo bin. A neobin. Hypothetical bin. Yeah. Not yet in existence. Why don't we set up a wheelie bin company that sells tokens? Tokens in?

Tokens to wheelie bins. That's right. So the right to have your rubbish collected. Yes. In fact, I think during COVID, I had paid council rates for the rights to have my rubbish collected and it wasn't for months I in, wasn't it? Right. So neo bins, dealing with neo trash. Yes.

So you're an ordinary trash. Now that's old. That's not sexy enough. Yeah. I want virtual neo-trash. Although, I'll tell you what, though. I think next DC is going to need a real bin to throw all their financial projections into it. Oh, yes, it's true.

Very well done. I said what you did there. But it is, it's kind of a charming story of local residents defeating data centers. The only problem is, look, isn't the idea that we sort of need data centers to have the new economy? Or are we doing it about turning? Are we just embracing really? We are not anti-progress, right? But the whole point is, and this is happening not just in data centres,

but this is like housing, they do this all the time, planning, urban planning all the time. What happens is governments and companies get into power and they go, oh, you know what the real problem is? The reason why nothing works in this society is that residents complain too much. So what we're going to do is we're just going to pass a law saying electricity companies can do whatever they want in any suburban street. And that is true.

The electricity company that was wiring it up was not breaking any laws, right? They were allowed to build this thing without any notice or consent from the residence right. And the whole point is that that doesn't work. It might work in theory. Oh, we're going to pass laws saying, oh, yeah, you can build skyscrapers in every street or whatever. and you go, oh, well, there we go, we've solved the housing problem. It doesn't work if you don't actually seek consent from the people around there because you can just get out your wheelie bin.

So, but I mean, you know, telcos can come in. We've had a telco coming into our strata and kind of going, we have the right to put all this equipment in there no matter what. Yes. So what we really need is all these big companies, if we're going to defeat the Nimbys, we need the right to seize wheelie bins. Yes, that's right. The electricity companies need to be able to remove every single wheel.

We need to pass a law that residents are not allowed to put out their garbage. Yep. I think that's kind of solid. That'll work. That'll work. It's the only way we can build data centers, Charles. Well, actually, this should have been an episode of Welcome to the Future because Welcome to the Future.

It could have been. Well, it is the future. We're on video. My God, what's going on? That's been the first ever video episode of the Chase Report. Look, are you excited? Are you going to rush home and watch this tonight? I'm going to rush home and buy shares in Big Wheeler Binh.