About 40° South
We built this because Australian businesses deserve better than "probably compliant."
Every day, regulated Australian businesses send sensitive data to AI models hosted overseas, with no audit trail, no compliance checks, and no way to prove to their board or regulator that they're meeting their obligations.
Why we exist
Accountability arrived before the proof did.
Australia has assigned accountability for AI faster than anyone can prove it. Regulated businesses are adopting AI while their boards, auditors and regulators ask a question they can't yet answer.
The question is simple.
Show me what our AI touched, and prove the record's intact.
40 South exists to make that answer possible.
Guard checks every AI call it's given against the Australian rules that apply and signs it into a tamper-evident record. Your team doesn't change how they work. Your board gets a certificate it can stand behind.
Why "40 South"
The 40th parallel south runs through the Southern Ocean, below Australia. It's our line in the sand. Everything above it, every piece of data, every AI interaction, stays under Australian law.
The name is a commitment to sovereignty. Not as a marketing line, but as an architectural decision. Guard processes data in Australia, stores it in Australia, and governs it under Australian law. That's not a policy we chose. It's how the infrastructure is built.
What we believe
Our principles
Evidence should be automatic.
If your team has to remember to capture proof, the system is broken. Guard records every call by default.
Your data is yours.
Guard runs only in Australia, and flags every call that would send your data offshore. We can prove where it went.
Simplicity is a feature.
Compliance is already complicated. Our job is to make the AI part simple. One API URL change. Live in a day.
We say what Guard doesn't do.
If we can't cover a regulation, we'll tell you before you sign. No vague promises.
The company
40 South Pty Ltd is an independent Australian company, registered in New South Wales and built by people who have spent their careers at the intersection of AI, enterprise technology, and regulated industries in Australia.
We're building the team. If you're interested in joining a company that's solving a real problem for Australian businesses, get in touch at hello@40south.au.
Our infrastructure
Guard runs on Google Cloud's Sydney region (australia-southeast1). All data processing, storage, and evidence logging happens within Australian borders.
Google Cloud infrastructure credentials
40 South platform features
Want to know more?
Have a question about Guard, our compliance coverage, or whether 40 South is right for your business?