Jason Gomersall: 0:02
Literally at the moment, deploying a water-cooled high-performance compute platform in one of our facilities here in Queensland, which I think will be the first of its kind. Separate to that, we’re obviously looking at our use of renewable energy, 100% renewable energy. There’s so many opportunities in tech.
Michael van Rooyen: 0:18
Today I have the pleasure in having a chat to Jason Gommersall, who is the founder and chief executive director of iSeek. Jason and I’ve known each other for a while. He’s been doing data centers and all things connectivity for over 26 years at iSeek, but has a fascinating history. We’re also going to talk a little bit about motorsport batteries and what’s happening in industry, Jason, welcome.
Jason Gomersall: 0:39
Thank you. Yeah, if we talk about life before iSeek, which was a long long time ago, I was actually in the mobile phone industry and in fact I was one of the original Optus World franchisees when that was a thing back in the day. So and if you go back before that, I effectively I was a uni dropout, dropped out of a mechanical engineering degree to start a business in Rockhampton, which is my hometown degree, to start a business in Rockhampton, which is my hometown, and that was selling mobile phones, installing satellite dishes TV antennas.
Jason Gomersall: 1:10
TV aggregation was a big thing back then.
Michael van Rooyen: 1:14
So selling filtered or doing filtered search and that then turned into a requirement to build internet services and that’s why you really built the data center. As you said, it’s probably people who haven’t been in this industry for a long time or new to the industry. They’re just thinking that data centers didn’t really exist back then. It was kind of timely what you built. You saw the demand that customers wanted data center space, because back then everyone had stuff on-prem. They bought lots of closets themselves. Was it just a tipping point or did you sort of found an opportunity that people were looking at all for loading that, for more security, resiliency? What was the? What was the motivator?
Jason Gomersall: 1:48
it’s changed over time. The initial driver was having access to the, the bandwidth being on top of the bandwidth.
Jason Gomersall: 1:55
So that’s what attracted our first customers. They they wanted access to big bandwidth and we had that, and so, by by coming to our data centre, that’s what they got access to. Later on, however, it was more as you said, they were running their own computer room or broom closet, whatever the case might be, and they needed to get out of doing that and give it to someone who did it as core business, and that’s still the case today. There’s still a lot of stuff on-prem which is hard to believe. But there’s still a lot of stuff on-prem which is hard to believe. But there’s still a lot of racks in computer rooms and broom closets on-prem that are still yet to make their way into a data centre like ours.
Jason Gomersall: 2:33
And then, in more recent times, of course, the drivers are the cloud providers taking up data centre space to provide services to end customers.
Michael van Rooyen: 2:39
Right right.
Jason Gomersall: 2:40
So yeah, it continues to evolve. The other big change is the rack densities. When we first started, we were talking one and two kilowatts a rack. That was fairly standard, and why you would build in a high-rise building, because you could support that sort of density. But it wasn’t long until that became a challenge. I suppose particularly with the advent of blade server technology. That was a real step change in our industry. And then your density was 4, 5, 6 kilowatts a rack.
Jason Gomersall: 3:12
So instead of 5, 6, 7, 8 kilowatts a rack, we’re talking 50, 60, 70 kilowatts a rack, which we’re now deploying in our facilities right now. That’s a lot of power.
Michael van Rooyen: 3:22
The technology industry just continues to evolve. Change, you know that makes it exciting, right, and you always think we’ve kind of reached a top of the bell curve but that’s at the bottom of the next one, right? It’s just this continued step up all the time. It must be challenging then trying to get that sort of power right. I mean, you’ve obviously built your data centers for mass scale, but then the hockey sticks be not hard to deal with, but the preparation for that you don’t see it coming. I mean, probably if I had this chat to you five years ago, you probably would have thought possible, of course, physically, but the demand wouldn’t have been there. You probably would have thought that that’s the case, right. The acceleration of hours just really sped that up here.
Jason Gomersall: 3:57
So, yes, we’ve needed access to a great deal of power to meet that demand. This next step, bud, bud, is the amount of density in a single rack and because of the sort of technology the gpu technology it can’t be air cooled, it must be water cooled. That’s really changing the game and that process. It needs a lot of compute, yes, and that compute generates, you know, a lot of, or requires a lot of power and a lot of energy. That’s that step change on water cooling.
Michael van Rooyen: 4:22
so water cooling, something you’re dealing with in the data centers, that’s kind of at scale. Are you doing that in your facilities or is it kind of within RAC? I don’t understand the water thing at that scale. How are you guys doing that?
Michael van Rooyen: 4:31
Yeah, we’re literally at the moment deploying a water-cooled high-performance compute platform in one of our facilities here in Queensland which I think will be the first of its kind in Queensland, which is a preview for the future. I know one of the things that’s really top of mind for people in the tech industry is sustainability. So a lot of the people I’ve just discussed with partners, vendors et cetera. There’s a lot of drive to obviously micronisation of compute and lower power consumption. If you talk to a networking space, for example, a lot more bandwidth but lower power consumption to deliver that. Lasers have become more efficient, all that good stuff. So there’s a big trajectory to try and get powered down. You’re on the opposite side where you’re seeing this demand of power going up and then there’s water cooling to offset that. How you got. How is iceeeker yourself or the industry thinking about sustainability? How do you reduce sustainability or manage sustainability?
Jason Gomersall: 5:21
I mean it is a challenge. I mean the way in which we’re cooling that technology, using different methods like water cooling, is more efficient than what we’ve done in the past. So that’s a plus Separate to that we’re obviously looking at and we’ve got some interesting things coming down the line in terms of our use of renewable energy. 100% renewable energy yeah, capturing heat and using that somewhere, that’s interesting, but in a climate like the one we operate in, haven’t worked out how that would work for us, how that would be relevant fascinating from from a point of view of thinking about what, what those challenges are.
Michael van Rooyen: 5:51
So it’s off that, what. What are then? Then? If I think about the data centers of the future, um, you know what are the, what are the kind of challenges for both your data centers as a whole and and cloud providers.
Jason Gomersall: 6:02
So you know what challenges you think are coming for them power is a big one and we’ve seen it in other parts of the world. You know done a fair bit in singapore, for example, with the data center industry there. You know they’ve effectively run out of power in singapore for the data center industry and have been pushed over the border in some respects into malaysia and there’s a precinct effectively just over the border that forms part of the Singapore data centre industry. We’re going to see the same thing here. There’s been a lot of capacity built in Sydney today, lots of capacity and lots more coming, but eventually I think that’s going to bleed into other parts of Australia, of australia. Um, there just simply won’t be enough power in in one place and that’s that’s a global problem.
Michael van Rooyen: 6:44
Connectivity is always, always the other dimension to a data center, right? So mass connectivity, fiber has definitely changed. Having a chat to uh, the head of innovation for nbn, the other day and he was talking much about how they obviously pushing fiber everywhere, which is original strategy around nbn and obviously life cycle has come around that. We know the the reasoning for for fiber. But you know, mass connecting data center is probably not the big problem anymore, right, you’ve got? You’ve got this spiders web or this web underneath the ground of all this connectivity and there’s there’s lots of resiliency and reliability. That was a challenge, but that’s kind of dissipated right undersea cabling. Leo satellites can also be a backup mechanism. Now all that. So so connectivity is pretty good. 5g is happening, but it’s power and what I’m hearing from you is really power. Is the challenge right? And how do we provide that on an ongoing basis to not consume, be the leader in power consumption or emissions consumption in the world, right?
Jason Gomersall: 7:29
Yeah, absolutely yeah. So therefore, I think the next 20 years in the Australian data centre industry is going to look very different than the last 20. We’ll see data centres built in places that we traditionally haven’t seen, because they’ll need to go where the power is, where it’s readily available, where it’s plentiful and where it’s green. So I think that’ll be a big trend for the next 20 years. And then things like AI are less latency dependent as well, so geography becomes less critical in that regard.
Michael van Rooyen: 8:02
so latency connectivity, you know, has really come a long way, so you know where that lives is not really the key. It’s all about, as you said, the sustainability where it can live, the security, uh, etc. I even know your townsville data center. You know you have built it for natural disaster type scenarios, right, so people can continue their services, and that’s the whole thinking on its own. As you said, there’s other areas.
Michael van Rooyen: 8:22
I remember google did data centers in and I can’t remember the exact location, iceland, wherever it was, because you know, use the natural cooling, uh, pre pre pre water cooling, but but that was, you know, kind of the thinking in that area as well. So, fascinating, fascinating around data centers, knowing, knowing that, uh, you’re an entrepreneur and invested in lots of businesses over your time in all different areas. If you were to be doing some not blue sky thinking, but if you’re doing any big bets today in the connectivity data center space, what would you be? Now, you don’t have to give any away, but you might be. But what are you thinking? Or what would you be thinking?
Jason Gomersall: 8:54
There’s so many elements to the data center industry, but where I’ve sort of focused and got really interested is the energy part of it, because they go hand in hand.
Jason Gomersall: 9:03
The energy industry is going through a massive transition at the moment from traditional coal and so forth to other technologies. So that’s fascinating. And to the extent the data centre industry plays in that whole story and that ecosystem, yeah, I’m just trying to find the opportunities within all that. Yeah, I’m just trying to find the opportunities within all that. Yeah, the data industry I think that you know it’s currently about 5% of total energy usage in Australia, moving very quickly to 8%.
Jason Gomersall: 9:30
So that’s continuing further and further. So, yeah, we I think we have to, as an industry have some thoughts or planning, or even investment in how that plays out.
Michael van Rooyen: 9:40
Without getting to politics. Do you think Australia’s ready for the power consumption we need? Should we look into nuclear, continuing green? And again, it’s only opinion, so anyone listening, it’s not a fact. I’m just interested in your opinion in this area.
Jason Gomersall: 9:52
Yeah, look, I think the nuclear thing makes sense.
Michael van Rooyen: 9:56
I agree.
Jason Gomersall: 9:57
From the point of view we’ve got all these coal-fired power stations. I grew up in central Queensland. On school excursions I went and saw quite a few of them it’s what you did and so I’ve been to Billawheeler and Tarong Power Station, stanwell. I’ve seen them and those communities rely on those assets and they have jobs running in those assets and so forth. And going and plonking another type of generator in those areas sort of makes a lot of sense.
Michael van Rooyen: 10:28
Completely agree, completely agree. Now, just if I think about your 26 years, you know, having ICIC go through many iterations to where it is today and knowing that you’ve led that business from the start, finding it and being the executive director and obviously CEO over the time and chairman, I think now, if I’m correct, of the board.
Jason Gomersall: 10:46
Still executive director. Executive director.
Michael van Rooyen: 10:49
What kind of leadership principles have you been guided by and helped you kind of run that business over?
Jason Gomersall: 10:56
the 26 years. Look, you try and lead by example. Try and keep it simple, customer first, and sometimes you can lose sight of that if you’re not careful. So your customers will tell you what they need from you if you listen. A lot of our product development and services have come from fixing a customer’s problem.
Michael van Rooyen: 11:16
And if I then think about, as I said earlier, you’ve done many, many investments in many areas, in many different businesses and different fields. When you do that, what are you kind of looking for in new ventures and how do you decide what to invest and what not to invest in, of course, across a broad range of topics?
Jason Gomersall: 11:32
You know, having something that fixes somebody’s problem a customer’s problem and that just leads to success. And then the second part is the people, and I was sort of stuck to that as a thesis and it seems to work, work well we’re talking about investments.
Michael van Rooyen: 11:46
Your focus has been you talk about energy, you know investing in a battery technology business, uh, mega life, um, you know what? What potential do you see in that technology? There’s obviously quite a bit happening in that space, uh, with some some unique things about that. So should you mind talking a bit about it, without giving away any secret sauce that you guys are working on?
Jason Gomersall: 12:02
Nathan, my business partner in that. I’ve known for some time through motorsport, nathan, very smart guy in the engineering field and simply he rang me up one day and he’s come up with a solution, a battery solution to a problem in a particular industry that happens to be very big. And investing in Nathan, who’s a really good guy, who’s very passionate, very knowledgeable, always pushing for technical excellence, which is an engineering excellence which is fantastic. Touch wood, so far proven, a recipe for success.
Michael van Rooyen: 12:33
Good good and it’s in it. I mean, if I just think about for those who aren’t following closely, what’s happening in the battery technology space and there’s a lot more evolution and innovation coming out of that space you think, oh, you know, that sounds like a traditional space to work in, but again you found a customer problem with a really clever technology that fits that problem. You’ve got a founder who’s really running it. So it’s that kind of that triple success. You’re focusing on new technology into market. That’s large, that’s probably traditional and and a bit of disruption and really founder driven. So that’s interesting. We’re watching that. We’re watching that close. I know you’re very, very excited about about that business.
Michael van Rooyen: 13:08
You mentioned meeting nathan, nathan, um, out of motorsport, and I know you’re a, you’re a motorsport enthusiast uh, your own. You’ve owned motor racing teams. You’ve got motor racing teams today, you’re sponsored them, you’re, you’re a driver yourself and have been for many years. Um, it has your passion for motor racing teams you’ve got motor racing teams today. You’re sponsored them, you’re, you’re a driver yourself and have been for many years. Um, it has your passion for motor racing influenced your entrepreneurial journey and business decisions or other way around even so, I got into motorsport.
Jason Gomersall: 13:32
I think I was about 29, 30 years old. I’d been in business for you know quite some time and you know everything was going okay. I felt I needed a hobby outside of business you were bored. I needed distraction outside of business, otherwise it might have done my head in.
Jason Gomersall: 13:47
So I tried fishing. Didn’t really work for me. It wasn’t consuming enough to take my mind off business. So I tried golf Same thing. Wasn’t very good at it and terrible at it. Decided to try motorsport. Always wanted to do motorsport. Never did anything as a kid no go-karting, nothing like that so just always wanted to do it for some reason. And probably my biggest fear when I, you know, first went into it was not whether I’d be any good or not, it was whether I’d actually enjoy it. Because I was.
Jason Gomersall: 14:16
I was looking for this hobby, that that I could enjoy outside of business. And uh yep, sure enough, first round. I think. I qualified second last and probably raced second last all weekend, but I loved it. So that was it. It had me hooked so very much, started as a hobby and over the course of time, somehow ended up in team ownership and ended up in the supercar circus, so to speak. So V8, uutes, and, and then you know, touring car masters and then eventually super three.
Jason Gomersall: 14:46
More recently, part owner matt stone racing. I’ve now got gomelson motorsport which runs in super two and other categories, and I guess my journey into that I used my business experience as as a methodology, I suppose, about how I went about my racing. But then I learned I’ve learned so much, much from motorsport and they do some really interesting things the level they’re operating at, particularly the main game level in supercars, the disciplines, the technology, the processes and the methodologies just next level. And I’ve been able to take some of that back into my business life. And since I’ve stepped down as CEO, having got that day-to-day challenge that comes from that, it’s probably less important. But for so long when you’re so invested every day and so entrenched in the business, that distraction call it, that of motorsport was so important to me. So you go away for the weekend racing, you actually step out of your business completely for that two or three days and you’re totally engrossed in what you’re doing. And that was so important to my sanity and probably, I think, helped my longevity as ceo.
Jason Gomersall: 15:54
I don’t think I could have gone 25 years if I didn’t have something else to an outlet, yeah, an outlet, yeah, okay, yeah, wow.
Michael van Rooyen: 16:00
Well, that that is interesting. And you did miss a data point, then I’ll. I’ll say it for on your behalf.
Jason Gomersall: 16:05
And you are the current six-hour Bathurst champion for your category yes yes, I’ve only had one outing this year and we had a win, and so I’m one for one, so that might be it for the year.
Michael van Rooyen: 16:16
That’s okay, I might hang the helmet up. Win it high.
Jason Gomersall: 16:18
No, the plan is to get back in later this year. I’ve got a GT4 Mustang on the water coming from Canada at the moment, so to compete in the GD4 category. So I’m looking forward to getting back behind the wheel, but also these days my son Ben. He’s competing in the Toyota 86 series, which is a pathway to supercars, and so forth and doing very well and I’m really enjoying just being a dad and a spectator and watching his journey.
Michael van Rooyen: 16:44
So off, that you know thinking about your business, that you run the investments you make, your passion for motorsports. Uh, you know how do you balance these things, you know, with such diverse interests. I mean, obviously there’s commonalities across them, but you know, I know how busy you are, but but how do you, how do you do that?
Jason Gomersall: 16:59
it’s been different at different times and sometimes you don’t quite get the balance right. Right at the moment, I I think I’m in a really good place in terms of finding that balance. Certainly, being able to step down as ceo of isek this year and hand the reins to scott and scott hicks has been fantastic. I mean scott? I mean it’s something I probably would have done over the course of the last few years, but just needed the right person to come along. He does, you know, he does things slightly different to me, but our core philosophies are very similar so, and the business probably needed something different. After 25 years, I mean, everything I’ve got to offer is still there and scott brings another dimension, uh, to it, which is which is great for this next phase. So now the business has has me involved and it has got involved what?
Michael van Rooyen: 17:40
what advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs who want to start a business or tech, tech business or business? What kind of advice would you give them?
Jason Gomersall: 17:48
Yeah, in the early stage. You know customer first, like get the customer experience right first, make all those initial experiences good and the rest will take care of itself. You know operational stuff they worry about. It’s like well, let’s make sure we’ve actually got that to worry about.
Michael van Rooyen: 18:04
If you don’t sell something to someone, you’ll never have to worry about that. So let’s make sure we’ve actually got that to worry about.
Jason Gomersall: 18:07
If you don’t sell something to someone, you’ll never have to worry about that. Fair enough.
Michael van Rooyen: 18:09
So let’s go create that problem.
Jason Gomersall: 18:09
Fair enough, let’s get a product out there, let’s sell something to someone and then Worry about those things. Yeah, I’m not saying, don’t think about it.
Michael van Rooyen: 18:16
Of course, don’t plan for it, of course.
Jason Gomersall: 18:22
Don’t let it consume, you won’t have anything to worry about so that’s great advice. Now, reflecting on your career, you know what would have been some of the most rewarding experiences that you’ve been through and and what can continues to motivate you in your personal pursuits reflecting on it sort of recently, what I’ve, you know, been heartened by, I suppose, is the number of opportunities that the businesses I’ve been involved with have created for different people and, and particularly in more recently, young people and okay and then I then I think about some of the people have been in isek for a long time.
Jason Gomersall: 18:52
They were young people when they joined, so, yeah, I get a warm glow from that. The number of, and whether it’s in motorsport uh, you know the teams I’ve been involved with, and and so forth or whether it’s the tech businesses yeah, to see the opportunities have come out of that for, you know, a number of people is great, so that’s a much better legacy than you know. Building a data centre yeah of course, of course. Yeah, creating opportunities for people is fantastic.
Michael van Rooyen: 19:20
Yeah, that is and that’s what most people you know get enjoyment out of and that’s also what keeps them sticky. You know the stories. You know helping, helping people out, seeing them on their journey right, that that’s always the cast the past, pass it down scenario, right and and and letting them lead their own charge effectively. Yeah, so two last ones for you. Is there any key takeaway or message for the people listening that that you want to mention or key take whether should to get out of this around?
Jason Gomersall: 19:46
you know the future, technology, entrepreneurship, anything around business well, the, the tech, yeah, so I suppose I spoke about the sort of things I’m focused on this so many.
Jason Gomersall: 19:57
There’s so many opportunities in tech and but the ones I’m focused around, that sort of linked together, is around that energy piece. So so, whether it’s data centre or whether it’s the Megalife investment in battery technology I’ve got a keen interest in, and there’s a lot of opportunity in energy, moving forward, the energy transition. So we’ve gone from a very for so long it was just it was coal and it worked and it was predictable, and that went on for decades. There’s going to be so much change over the next couple of decades and you know there’s going to be so many different sources of energy, um, and so much opportunity. That’s sort of where I’m focused. And then entrepreneurship um, well, has that really changed? I mean, it’s someone with an idea, some, you know, some passion, who can then motivate and excite a group of people to come with them and build something and, uh, create something.
Michael van Rooyen: 20:54
Yes, and would you also for entrepreneurs because we always, for those who have been started business or been involved, business failed or successful. It’s always that hard to start, to move right would you encourage to have a go? I mean, you know not what could go wrong. Of course you got to take risk and all that into consideration, but but would you encourage that don’t, don’t, don’t be hesitant. You know, have a go, there’s opportunities out there, as long as you customer first and do the right things absolutely.
Jason Gomersall: 21:17
I think there’s as much opportunity as ever. I think I think in some respects it’s hard, there’s more red tape and of course regulation and all that sort of stuff.
Jason Gomersall: 21:26
That that bit is harder, um, maybe 20 years ago. But opportunities there. And it’s interesting, I, over the years, I’ve had a lot of people um, come to me who you know in this more startup phase and they’re second guessing what they’re doing and questioning how well they’re going. They sort of tell you how they’re going. You get, you’re going great, yeah. But so I’d absolutely say have a go. There’s nothing more rewarding, I think you know, than building something. And uh, I often say to nathan, we’ve you know, two or three years into the mega life journey and say enjoy these years, these are the, these are the fun ones, that’s true those early.
Michael van Rooyen: 22:00
They are the fun ones, so I asked them all, guests who participate uh, you know, tell me about the most significant technology change or shift you’ve seen or been involved with during your career.
Jason Gomersall: 22:11
I know it sounds a bit boring now but really that first involvement was sort of reasonably early in the internet industry Not right at the start, but reasonably early and the advent of email and search engines and all that stuff that came in the early days, which was a massive step change and shift in productivity massive shift in productivity. And we haven’t seen anything like that since and if anything, we might have gone backwards in terms of some of the stuff we’ve done since with social media and we might have actually reduced productivity with too many distractions and so forth, so that, yeah, in my lifetime experience and and even mobile phones yes, I mean that geez, that really shifted the way we operated.
Jason Gomersall: 22:56
It’s hard to fathom, you know, how available we all are now compared to and, and we’re probably we’re that generation we’ve had most that stuff in our adult life. Yes, you think about before that you know, no mobile phone, no email address, no one knows how to contact you except on the home phone. So those things have been massive. What’s the next one? You know, and the industry probably needs one, because we, as I said, we’ve probably gone backwards in terms of the productivity.
Michael van Rooyen: 23:21
I agree, I never thought about that, but I agree.
Jason Gomersall: 23:23
The. You know, ai is potentially that next big step change in productivity and therefore contribution to what we do. Yeah, I agree.
Michael van Rooyen: 23:33
AI being the. As I keep saying, it’s the assisted intelligence, right, the augmented intelligence. Yeah, the efficiency. I completely agree. I think we’re only seeing the bottom of the bell curve today on what it’s going to bring us. But I do like that. I’m a big fan of plumbing and I think building the internet to give us the connectivity, the hyper-connectivity, mobile phones definitely is one of mine top as well, so I really appreciate that. Yeah, well, I appreciate the time today. Jase, thanks for catching up. Good to see you, you too, as always.
