Maincode has announced a $30 million investment to build a new state-of-the-art AI factory in Melbourne set to open in January 2026.
Known internally as MC-2, the new factory marks a major leap forward in Maincode’s mission to make Australian-Made AI a global force. It will expand Maincode’s capability to design, build, and operate advanced, task-specific AI models that are engineered to handle the kind of structured, rule-based, and context-sensitive workloads that traditional general-purpose LLMs struggle to deliver.
Following the success of MC-1, which produced Matilda, Maincode’s first fully built and trained large language model, the company is now doubling down on what it does best: building precise, high-performance models that solve real operational problems for customers.
“MC-2 is more than an expansion, it’s a statement of belief, ” said Dave Lemphers, Co-Founder and CEO of Maincode. “We’re not chasing size for its own sake. We’re building advanced, focused models that actually work, models built with the precision, efficiency, and practicality that define Australian Engineering.”
At the heart of MC-2 is next-generation compute and storage infrastructure, powered by advanced GPUs and platforms from AMD. The factory combines AMD Instinct™ MI355 accelerators, AMD EPYC™ 9575F server CPUs, and AMD ROCm™ software to deliver high-performance training and efficient inference within an integrated environment designed for reliability, scalability, and fast time to value.
The token layer is where intelligence is shaped, through deep software systems that govern how models are trained, adapted, and applied to specific problem spaces. By focusing on the token layer, Maincode moves beyond the one-size-fits-all limitations of generic LLMs. It allows the company to build
purpose-built models from the ground up, unlocking real capability without the endless trial and error of prompt engineering.
“Anyone who’s spent time trying to prompt-engineer a general-purpose model to follow complex rules or logic knows the limits,” said Lemphers. “That’s where we come in. MC-2 lets us build and operate specialised models from the ground up, custom-built to handle the exact decision-making and reasoning tasks our customers need, without the guesswork.”
“At AMD, we have a bold vision to enable AI everywhere, bringing open, high-performance computing to developers, start-ups, and enterprises around the world,” said Peter Chambers, Senior Director, OEM Sales, APJ and Country Manager, Australia, AMD. “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 and to help advance Australia’s AI Ecosystem.”
Maincode’s $30 million commitment represents one of the largest private AI infrastructure investments in Australia’s history.
“What we’re building with MC-2 is capability, ” said Lemphers. “We’re using the best technology in the world and applying it with Australian inventiveness. We’re not a chatbot company, we’re an AI company that builds entirely new models from scratch, systems designed to handle the work that general-purpose models can’t, no matter how much prompt engineering you try. MC-2 isn’t about scale, it’s about precision. It’s where the next generation of useful, usable AI gets made.”
