Northern Intelligence

Corey Vaughan started as an apprentice at Max Engineering in Mackay. Two decades in the Bowen Basin later, a worn pipe failed and discharged material for hours before anyone noticed. A site manager asked: could we know before it fails? Corey found “a lot of measuring, but not a lot of monitoring.” So his team built 2CENSOR, patented wear-monitoring sensors now used across the Americas, Africa and Asia-Pacific. “It wasn’t that we invented a sensor and hoped it worked. It was a calculated risk.”

Junead Khan quit Microsoft to build Treasury, an “AI money coach” for people who can’t afford a financial adviser. No co-founder, no venture capital. He says Claude Code and Codex let him “code so much faster”, so going solo felt achievable. He shared the highs and lows on social media to build an audience. Treasury now has paying customers and over US$6,000 in revenue. Early days, and he’s honest he lives off savings. His lesson: “sometimes the only permission you need is your own.”

Sam Rogers grew up on Breadalbane Plains near Proserpine. Mustering by drone was “burning so much time”, so he built AI models, with low-stress stockmanship experts, that teach off-the-shelf drones to move cattle themselves. Tap the paddock they’re in, tap where they’re going, press start. He raised $1.2 million, with Y Combinator as main investor, and is trialling in the US, where self-flying drone rules are more open. Now renamed Brumby, it’s also working on weighing cattle and measuring grass from the air.

OpenAI says GPT-6 can build a tool for the task at hand, like a savings calculator or a bill splitter, or lay out a roast timeline next to the recipe. Three to try tonight:

1. Bill splitter: “Split power, internet and groceries for 4 people.”
2. Savings goal: “Show how $50 a week grows to a $3,000 holiday.”
3. Roast planner: “Roast for 6, eating at 6 pm, with a timeline.”

Keep bank, Medicare and TFN details out of the chat.

On 8 October, Canada’s General Fusion said LM26 heated plasma beyond 1 keV, about 12.6 million °C, measured with the UK Atomic Energy Authority. It squeezes plasma with a metal wall, not giant lasers or superconducting magnets. Honest bit: the papers are submitted for peer review, not yet reviewed. Next stop 10 keV; first plant aimed for around 2035.

🎧 Listen: Moonshots #303 (17 Oct): falling robot-brain costs and how prizes drive breakthroughs, with XPRIZE CEO Anousheh Ansari.

Oxford Economics forecasts data-centre investment here jumping from under $10b a year (2025) to over $60b by 2030. Its modelling: $65.7b to GDP and about 353,000 job-years over FY26–30, ~65% in supplier businesses, regional included. Catch: only ~35–38% of spend stays onshore.

The government’s CEFC says steady daytime demand could soak up solar that would be wasted, though evening peaks still lean on coal and gas.

Water: an industry-commissioned report puts use at ~0.04% of Australia’s water, but Sydney Water forecasts 15–20% of Sydney’s supply by 2035. Small nationally; plan locally.