Biochar concrete push meets blockchain carbon tracking
Australia’s data centre sector is experiencing a structural boom. Over 250 facilities are already operating across the country, with a pipeline of projects expected to attract between $26 billion and $100 billion in investment by 2030. Hyperscalers including Amazon and Microsoft are now committing capital to large-scale Australian builds, and the regulatory direction on carbon reporting is clear and accelerating.
That tailwind sits directly behind Noviqtech (ASX:NVQ).
Coralia, NoviqTech’s subsidiary, has signed a research partnership with Swinburne University exploring how biochar derived from invasive weed species can be used in non-structural concrete and landscaping products. Early findings point to a 15% reduction in embodied carbon compared to standard concrete, which matters given that data centres account for 40% of concrete usage in the construction pipeline attached to this sector.
If the research holds up, the result is a building material that actively sequesters carbon rather than emitting it.
That is where Carbon Central enters the picture. Verified, tamper-proof carbon data is exactly what the platform was built to provide. As biochar-embedded products move toward commercialisation, the ability to track, prove, and report the carbon sequestered inside them shifts from a nice-to-have to a genuine commercial requirement. The pieces fit together in a way that is hard to ignore.
What Is Biochar and Why Does It Matter?
Biochar is a carbon-rich, charcoal-like material made by heating organic matter such as wood in a low-oxygen environment. When biochar is buried in soil or locked into a building material like concrete, the carbon inside it is effectively removed from the atmosphere for potentially hundreds to thousands of years.
That matters for investors because concrete is one of the most polluting materials on the planet, responsible for roughly 8% of global CO2 emissions. Embedding biochar into concrete does not just reduce the footprint of the product itself, it actively sequesters carbon that would otherwise stay in the atmosphere.
How does Coralia turn this into revenue?
The biochar project carries two revenue streams worth paying close attention to.
The first is carbon credits. Put simply, a carbon credit is a verified certificate representing one tonne of CO2 removed from or kept out of the atmosphere. Companies with emissions obligations buy these certificates to offset their footprint, allowing them to demonstrate that their net impact has been neutralised to that extent.
Here is how it works in practice for Coralia. Invasive weeds sourced from North Queensland are converted into biochar, a carbon-rich feedstock that locks carbon into a stable solid form rather than releasing it back into the atmosphere. An independent body, Puro.earth in this case, then verifies the process and issues carbon removal credits accordingly. Data centre operators with growing emissions profiles, think NextDC, Amazon, and others currently building out new facilities across Australia, are the natural buyers of those credits.
The commercial logic is straightforward. The more biochar Coralia produces, the more credits get issued, and the more product there is to sell into a market where demand is being driven by regulatory pressure and net zero commitments that are not going away.
The second revenue stream is simpler, sell the physical biochar material to concrete manufacturers who mix it into their products. Biochar-enhanced concrete has a lower embodied carbon footprint, which helps those companies meet their own sustainability targets.
NoviqTech currently holds 550,000 credits with a $100 million opportunity
We spoke with Timothy Brooks, who founded Coralia. The company currently holds 550,000 credits in its pipeline, with 50,000 produced at full annual capacity. At prevailing market rates, that represents a potential $100 million revenue opportunity from carbon credit sales alone, with hyperscalers and global infrastructure developers as the target buyers.
That is a significant number. Whether it translates into reality depends entirely on how well Coralia executes on both its research programme and its commercial strategy, and that is the question worth watching closely.
Why Companies Now Need to Track Their Emissions
Companies around the world are under increasing pressure to measure, report, and prove their carbon emissions. This is where Noviqtech core business comes in. The company builds software tools that allow businesses to track their carbon footprint accurately on a blockchain, so the data cannot be faked or manipulated.
Think of it as a QR code on a product that lets you trace every step of its production: how much carbon was emitted, what recycled materials were used, whether the fuel was truly sustainable. Noviqtech Carbon Central and Fuel Central platforms do exactly this, issuing digital tokens on the Hedera blockchain as verified proof of sustainability claims.
The business model is SaaS-based, with companies paying a monthly subscription to access the platform. In FY2025, this generated just $9,100 from two customers. The company is very early in commercialisation, and that is the most important line in this entire update.
The Key Milestone Achievements
Investors should note that the company is still loss-making, with just $1.2 million in cash on the balance sheet. But to be fair to the story, FY2025 was a genuine platform-building year that lays the groundwork for future revenue.
In Q1 2025, the first real paying customer onboarded to Carbon Central. In Q2, Recycled Aims launched on the Hedera network, using blockchain to validate and store sustainability data. In Q3, Fuel Central officially launched, rounding out the suite of software tools the company needs to actually deliver value to customers.
The honest way to frame this is that Noviqtech is in build mode. The milestones are real, the revenue is not yet. Investors need to decide how much weight they put on each.
The Investors’ Takeaway for Noviqtech
With the SaaS platform now built out and the company beginning to accumulate academic and institutional credibility, the next logical step is securing commercial offtake agreements. The timing is not accidental given the scale of data centre and infrastructure build-out currently underway globally.
The key commercial milestone to watch is the Puro.earth Preliminary Assessment Approval. Puro.earth is the standard-setting body for biochar carbon dioxide removal credits, and approval unlocks the ability to issue and sell those credits internationally. Without it, Coralia has no product to sell in the carbon credit market. That single milestone is the gating event for the entire biochar opportunity.
Noviqtech earns a place on the watchlist. The academic research is credible, the blockchain-based carbon reporting platform addresses a real and growing regulatory need, and the partners the company has attracted, including the Hedera network and Viva Energy, are not small names. The platforms work, paying customers exist however early-stage they are, and the pieces of the thesis are genuinely interesting.
The financial runway remains the risk that sits over all of it. The company raised $1.5 million in January and now holds approximately $1.2 million in cash, against an average burn rate of around $2.5 million per year. Another raise in the near term looks probable. Watch the Puro.earth approval and whether the pipeline begins to convert. Those are the two things that will tell investors whether this story has real legs.
