Commercial & operator engagement
Hans Chang
Focuses on operator needs, commercial strategy and conversations with investors and development partners.
Regional infrastructure · Starting in Ballarat
Building Australia’s
regional AI
infrastructure.
Starting in Ballarat, Helio DC is building a platform to develop and operate regional data centres, with renewable energy at the centre of its development strategy.
Explore our approachThe facility & compute layers
Operator focus
Compute & cloud
Servers · AI workloads · Cloud services
Helio development focus
The physical foundation
- 01Land
- 02Power
- 03Cooling
- 04Building
The shift to everyday AI
AI use is
growing fast.
Inference is what happens when a trained AI model responds to a request. As AI becomes part of everyday work, the infrastructure behind those responses matters.
For Helio, that means exploring what operators serving Australia need from power, cooling and connectivity, then shaping the Ballarat development around those requirements.
- May 2025
- About 480
- May 2026
- Over 3,200
Company-reported historical usage. The 2026 bar shows the reported lower bound. Tokens are units of data processed by AI models; this is not a forecast of electricity use or demand in Ballarat.
Source: Google I/O, 19 May 2026Why we are building
Australian capability.
Regional opportunity.
Australia has an opportunity to build more of the productive infrastructure behind its digital economy. Our focus is practical: staged development, operator requirements and long-term capability in regional communities. The vision includes a co-located makerspace where the local community can learn, prototype and collaborate.
01 / Development approach
Power-led development.
Starting in Ballarat.
Our first development focus is a staged AI campus in Ballarat. Technical studies, utility assessment and planning work shape the route from site concept to delivery.
- 01
Establish the foundations
Progress land arrangements, site investigations and network assessment to define the development pathway.
- 02
Align the design
Coordinate power, cooling and building design with planning requirements and the needs of future operators.
- 03
Develop in stages
Plan an initial facility within a wider campus approach, with expansion shaped by demand, approvals and subsequent funding.
Ballarat is in development. Delivery depends on land arrangements, network assessment, planning approvals, detailed design, operator commitments and funding.
02 / Operator fit
Different hardware.
A shared need
for infrastructure.
Our focus spans AI and neocloud operators, high-performance computing, and general colocation.
Workloads and hardware change. We are exploring requirements for a mix of processors and accelerators, with the aim of shaping power, cooling and buildings around each operator’s needs.
Built around the conversation
What does your next deployment need from its physical infrastructure?
Connect with Helio03 / Our people
Commercial understanding.
Technical direction.
Complementary responsibilities connect operator needs with the work of developing a data-centre facility.
Technical & development coordination
Rana Qadir
Focuses on the facility design, electrical and utility pathway, and coordination of technical development work.
Start a conversation
Let’s build
the foundations.
We welcome conversations with infrastructure investors, energy companies, super funds and businesses seeking reliable, cost-efficient compute capacity in Australia.
Email Hans Changhans@fab9.com.au