NEXTDC puts 1,200MW on M5 and targets a nine-month build
NEXTDC has put 1,200MW on M5, more than four times what it has built in total, and expects to go from bare ground to a running site in nine months.
· Capacity & Expansion
Data Centre News Australia — Market Insights
Independent analysis of Australia's data centre and AI infrastructure market. Latest published articles are linked below for crawler discovery.
NVIDIA puts its balance sheet behind the data centre buildout
NVIDIA has guaranteed up to US$105bn of rent at one Ohio campus. In Australia it holds equity in Firmus and takes a share of Sharon AI's cloud revenue.
· AI Infrastructure
Australia's data centre reporting season, August 2026
An overview of Australia's August 2026 data centre results, what five ASX companies said about spending and timing, and the rules that changed with them.
· Market Intelligence
IREN says power and land now set the pace of its AI build
IREN says contracts worth about US$4 billion a year cover its 2026 capacity. Its co-chief executive says power, land and data centres are what take years.
· Market Intelligence
Australian AI companies buy the chips and rent the space
Australian AI companies running on local capacity paid for their own processors and rented the space. A new federal program aims at bank buyers.
· AI Infrastructure
NEXTDC to spend up to A$5.75bn in FY27 to switch on 197MW
NEXTDC will spend up to A$5.75bn next year building capacity customers have already signed for. That is about two thirds of the funding it has.
· Operator Updates
Firmus' Melbourne AI factory now runs customer models
Firmus says the Melbourne site it contracted in March has been installed, tested and handed over, and is running a customer's AI models.
· AI Infrastructure
Macquarie Technology buys room to build 200MW in Sydney's north
Macquarie paid A$254m for a second Macquarie Park site, in a suburb where Ausgrid reports 65 per cent of connection capacity unallocated.
· Operator Updates
National Cabinet agreed on data centre standards and left the energy rule for 2027
First ministers agreed on 26 August 2026 to develop mandatory standards for data centre energy, water and land use, and to legislate in early 2027. Queensland and the Northern Territory kept room to use their own energy mix.
· Policy & Regulation
Data Centres Australia puts AI compute exports at up to A$4.1bn
On the day national cabinet took up data centre standards, the industry's own research named approvals and grid waits as the constraint.
· Market Intelligence
Anthropic wanted 5GW of data centres outside Sydney
An Infrastructure NSW email says Claude maker Anthropic wanted up to 5GW outside Sydney, about three times every data centre Australia has built.
· Policy & Regulation
Cushman counts 2.44GW of Australian data centres already leased
Cushman counts 2.44GW of Australian data centre capacity leased before construction, 61 per cent of the pipeline and the largest volume in Asia Pacific.
· Market Intelligence
Zerra files a 1.44GW data centre campus in Queensland
Four 360MW buildings on 725.5 hectares near Dalby. Queensland has twice voided applications that were lodged and awaiting a decision.
· Policy & Regulation
Bowen to legislate data centre energy rules over Queensland
Canberra will legislate to make data centres fund new renewables in their own state. Queensland wants them to pay the local council before they can apply.
· Policy & Regulation
AEMO says the grid can meet a tripled data centre forecast
AEMO has data centres at 15TWh by 2029-30 and 34TWh by 2035-36, and says supply can meet it for much of the decade if the generation pipeline is delivered.
· Market Intelligence
US tenants now get free rent if a data centre opens late
US tenants write a fixed opening date into their data centre leases, and an operator that misses it credits the tenant rent for every day past it. The Australian reported on 21 August 2026 that clauses of this kind are appearing in Australian deals.
· Market Intelligence
Analysts asked Goodman when the data centres start paying
- Twelve analysts asked Goodman one question on 20 August 2026: when does the money spent on data centres start coming back? - Goodman expects the projects it...
· Market Intelligence
Citadel unwinds 80% of its Situational Awareness risk
- Sharon AI and IREN were worth US$890 million inside Leopold Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness at 30 June 2026. - The fund sold the bulk of its share...
· Market Intelligence
Megaport paid A$54.3m for GPUs it has not switched on
Megaport spent A$54.3m on AI compute contracts in the year to 30 June 2026. Installation starts in the December 2026 quarter, on a timetable the company...
· Market Intelligence
DigiCo to sell three US data centres to fund 88MW Sydney upgrade
DigiCo's FY26 result came with conditional agreements to sell three American data centres, freeing about A$470 million to take its Sydney site to 88MW.
· Operator Updates
Telstra ties bonuses to 8 AI initiatives
Telstra's FY27 bonus scorecard puts 5 per cent on eight of 11 AI initiatives. The executive running its enterprise-wide AI agenda reports to the general counsel.
· Market Intelligence
Transgrid gives data centres three months to keep NSW capacity
Transgrid's policy began 14 August 2026. A data centre has three months from signing to meet five conditions. The planning consent is the state's to grant.
· Policy & Regulation
Goodman holds 3.6GW of secured power for data centres
Data centres are 78% of the A$19.7 billion Goodman has under construction. Of its 3.6GW of secured power, 2.4GW has not been started.
· Operator Updates
Goodman signs 20-year Tokyo lease behind an eight-to-ten-year grid wait
A hyperscaler took 50MW at Goodman's Tsukuba site near Tokyo. It is the first phase of a 1GW campus on land Goodman bought in 2022.
· Operator Updates
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