Together with NVIDIA, we’re heading to Adelaide as a Platinum Partner of Australia’s most loved innovation festival. And we’re bringing an AI Supercomputer to give away.
There’s something about South Australia right now. A gravitational pull that’s drawing founders, investors and innovators together with genuine purpose — not just to network, but to build something that matters. That’s the energy behind SOUTHSTART RESONANCE 2026, and it’s exactly why we wanted to be part of it.
From 17-19 March, SOUTHSTART takes over Adelaide CBD (and eventually McLaren Vale wine country) for three days of masterclasses, keynotes, honest conversations and the kind of collisions that only happen when you put the right people in a room together. This year’s tagline says it well: Gathering Australia’s innovators to slow down, reconnect and build with purpose.
We’ll be there across the full festival. Here’s what we’re bringing.
Win a GIGABYTE ATOM AI Supercomputer
Let’s start with the big one. We’re giving away a GIGABYTE ATOM Desktop SuperComputer, powered by the new NVIDIA Grace Blackwell GB10.
This isn’t a metaphor. It’s a 1.2kg, shoebox-sized machine that delivers 1 petaFLOP of AI performance and can run 200 billion parameter large language models. It’s fully compatible with NVIDIA Rapids and NIMs, meaning you can develop and run AI applications on the ATOM and seamlessly port them to larger Grace Blackwell clusters without changing a line of code.
Your own token generation machine. On your desk. Yours to keep.
The competition is exclusively for SOUTHSTART Founder Ticket holders. If you haven’t got your ticket yet, grab one here.
What We’ll Be Talking About
We’re sending three of our team to speak across the festival, and each session digs into the practical reality of building AI infrastructure that you actually own.
Day 1 — PRECINCT (17 March)
Malcolm Haak,
Solutions Architect
Malcolm Haak: Building Your AI Startup — Tokens, Tools and Traps to Avoid
Going from AI concept to a minimum viable product requires the right tools, experience and approach. Malcolm will walk through the power of owning your very own token generation machine, the models and tools that matter, and real examples of how to go from AI-idea to AI-product. If you’re a founder in the early stages of building with AI, this is the session to start your festival with.
Day 2 — ASSEMBLY (18 March)
Troy Smithells,
Account Executive
Troy Smithells: Own Your Own AI
Is AI becoming an essential part of your business? The decisions you make now about your technology stack will shape your long-term flexibility and autonomy. Many organisations are exploring how to balance the advantages of cloud platforms with the benefits of owning and operating their own AI infrastructure — gaining control over their solutions, with real improvements in profitability and competitive differentiation.
Troy joins forces with NVIDIA to share detailed case studies of startups that have successfully transitioned their AI workloads to their own environments, empowering them to manage every layer of their technology with greater confidence and clarity.
Why We Believe in You Owning Your Stack
At XENON, we’ve spent almost 30 years building high performance computing and AI infrastructure for organisations that need control, performance and cost certainty. As NVIDIA’s Partner of the Year, we work with startups and enterprises across Australia to design systems that fit how they actually work — not how the cloud wants them to work.
The shift we’re seeing right now is significant. More and more founders are asking the same questions:
What happens when cloud costs scale faster than revenue?
Early-stage AI companies often start in the cloud because it’s fast and familiar. But as workloads grow, so do the bills — and the dependency. Owning your infrastructure locks in predictable costs and protects your margins as you scale.
Who actually controls your data?
Sovereign AI isn’t just a government talking point. For startups handling sensitive data, operating in regulated industries or simply wanting to keep their IP close, owning the infrastructure means your models, your data and your processing stay in your jurisdiction. No offshore processing, no third-party access, no surprises.
Can you differentiate at the infrastructure layer?
When every competitor is running on the same hyperscaler, your infrastructure becomes a commodity. Owning your stack gives you the freedom to optimise, customise and iterate at a level that cloud environments simply don’t allow.
These aren’t theoretical questions. They’re the exact conversations our team has with founders every week, and they’re what we’ll be exploring in depth at SOUTHSTART.
The SOUTHSTART Experience
If you haven’t been to SOUTHSTART before, here’s what to expect across the three days:
Day 1 — PRECINCT (17 March): A city-wide, real-world classroom spread across Adelaide CBD venues including Lot Fourteen and the National Wine Centre. Over 20 masterclasses, summits and activations, plus an Investor Summit powered by Southern Angels and a Bright Ideas Summit for students. The day wraps with an opening celebration and founder dinner.
Day 2 — ASSEMBLY (18 March): The main event at the National Wine Centre. Five-plus stages of programming spanning Tech, AI, Climate, Health, Space and Ethics. Discovery Talks, Office Hours with investors and experts, Growth Sessions and a Block Party on Vardon Avenue to close it out. You’ll share the room with speakers from Culture Amp, Techstars, Canva, the SA Government and many more.
Day 3 — OFFSITE (19 March): An immersive day at Beresford Estate and Vale Taphouse in McLaren Vale. Reflection, conversation and shared experience in wine country. A proper way to process everything from the first two days.
See You in Adelaide
Whether you’re a founder building your first AI product, a scale-up rethinking your infrastructure or just curious about what sovereign AI actually looks like in practice — we’d love to connect at SOUTHSTART.
Come for the supercomputer giveaway. Stay for the conversations that could shape the next phase of your business.
SOUTHSTART RESONANCE 2026
17-19 March | Adelaide CBD and McLaren Vale
Learn more at southstart.co
XENON is a Platinum Partner of SOUTHSTART RESONANCE 2026. We design and deliver AI infrastructure, HPC systems, servers and workstations for organisations that need performance without compromise. Talk to our team about your AI infrastructure needs.
