Australian data centre capacity: the 2026 to 2030 guide

At a glance

• Australia has about 1.6GW of data centre capacity running, and industry body Data Centres Australia and researcher DC Byte forecast 3.9GW by 2030. Ten data centre projects and stages across four states are due in 2027, four of them campuses of 200MW or more.

• Five follow in 2028, four in New South Wales and one in South Australia.

• Headline capacity due to start is about 1.7GW in 2027 and 1.3GW in 2028, including several full-campus sizes.

• New South Wales carries 13 of the 25 projects with a published date, with projects due in every year from 2026 to 2029.

• Large campuses without a date include gigawatt-scale proposals in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and the Northern Territory.

This guide lists every Australian data centre project and stage with a published target year, taken from the operator, its builder or press reporting, with sources under each table. Financial-year dates are converted to the calendar months they cover. Sites already operating are in the list of data centres in Australia.

Ten projects and stages are due in 2027 and five in 2028, and New South Wales holds eight of the 15. Two Sydney campuses carry 2029 dates, and no project yet has a published 2030 date.

Source: operator releases and results, builders and trade press, compiled 20 September 2026. CDC's Marsden Park program, running from April 2027 to March 2029, is counted in 2029.

The next table groups headline capacity by the year each project's stage is due, using the published figure for that stage, or for the whole project where no stage figure is given. Most campuses come online in stages over several years, and each company measures capacity its own way.

Source: capacity as published by each company, on different bases: planned capacity, IT load (the power available to computing equipment), first phase or whole campus. S4, S7, MEL2, the SYD3 extension and IREN Bundey are full-campus sizes that will be built over years, so the totals are indicative and do not measure capacity switching on in that year. Victoria's largest projects have no date yet: Syncline Energy's Plumpton proposal at 2.4GW, NEXTDC M5 at up to 1.2GW, Keppel's Hazelwood campus at 720MW, CDC Laverton at more than 400MW, STACK MEL02 at 252MW and NEXTDC M4 at 150MW.

2026: eight projects and about 90MW across five states and territories

Eight Australian data centre projects and stages carry a 2026 date. Three were delivered in the first eight months of the year, and about 90MW of capacity is involved.

Source: NEXTDC FY26 results, DigiCo FY26 results, Firmus, Macquarie Technology FY26 results, GreenSquareDC, Firmus and Tasmanian Government, ABC, DCD.

NEXTDC and DigiCo added their 2026 capacity inside existing sites, and Macquarie Data Centres says the power and water supply for the full IC3 SuperWest building has been commissioned.

Firmus, one of the neocloud providers in Australia that rent out the computing capacity inside an AI data centre, said on 27 August that its Melbourne cluster had been installed, commissioned and handed over.

Canberra Data Centres (CDC) supplies the data centre infrastructure for Firmus's Project Southgate. Its Brooklyn campus in Melbourne, operating since 2024, was officially opened by Premier Jacinta Allan in February 2026.

2027: ten projects, four of them 200MW or more

Ten Australian data centre projects and stages carry a 2027 target date, four of them campuses of 200MW or more, and about 1.7GW of headline capacity starts that year.

Source: NEXTDC FY26 results, VIRIDIS, Macquarie Technology, DigiCo, Multiplex, NEXTDC, NSW Planning Portal, CRN, Capacity, DigiCo BNE3.

NEXTDC's S7 has OpenAI as anchor tenant, and NEXTDC set its 2027 date in December 2025.

Anthropic is leasing Building One at Singapore developer Zerra DC's Western Downs campus, subject to council approval of the development application and Foreign Investment Review Board approval of the lease.

2028: five projects and about 1.3GW, four of them in New South Wales

Five Australian data centre projects and stages carry a 2028 target date, covering about 1.3GW of headline capacity, four of them in New South Wales.

Source: Starwood, Doma and Telstra InfraCo, w.media, DigiCo, Bouygues, IREN.

Works on AirTrunk's SYD3 extension began in July 2026. IREN announced its Bundey campus, about 125km north-east of Adelaide, on 3 June 2026, with its transmission connection agreement already signed.

2029 and 2030: two Sydney campuses, then forecasts

Two Sydney campuses carry a 2029 date. No Australian operator has published a 2030 opening date, so 2030 is covered by forecasts.

Source: Infratil, NSW Planning Portal, Macquarie Technology.

Australia intends to legislate data centre standards in early 2027, and most of the pipeline would be built under them.

The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) forecasts data centre electricity use in the National Electricity Market, the grid serving every state except Western Australia, to triple to about 15TWh in the year to June 2030. The forecast for total operating capacity, reaching 3.9GW in 2030, is set out at the end of this guide.

State by state

Each state's dated projects run in date order, followed by a selection of the large projects that have no date yet. For the operating fleet, see the ranking of data centres in Australia, and for how each state stands on pipeline, power, policy and workforce, the state-by-state assessment.

New South Wales

• 2026: DigiCo SYD1 20MW, Macquarie IC3 SuperWest 6MW, GreenSquareDC SYD1

• 2027: Macquarie IC3 SuperWest 13MW, DigiCo SYD1 10MW, NEXTDC S4 365MW planned, NEXTDC S7 550MW+

• 2028: Starwood, Doma and Telstra InfraCo Minchinbury 62MW, Goodman SYD01 12.2MW, DigiCo SYD1 42MW, AirTrunk SYD3 extension 400MW+

• 2029: CDC Marsden Park 504MW, Macquarie Technology's Macquarie Park campus 200MW

• No date yet: AirTrunk's 1.2GW Kemps Creek proposal, AWS Glendenning at 235MW (approved 16 September 2026), Goodman's Project Atlas at 500MVA (megavolt-amperes) of grid supply, Project Apollo at 135MW and Project Pluto at 126MW, NEXTDC S5 at 80MW+, Stockland's 76.4MW at Macquarie Park

Six of the state's 13 dated projects are data centres in Western Sydney.

Victoria

• 2026: NEXTDC M3 20MW, Firmus Brooklyn cluster

• 2027: NEXTDC GE1 Geelong about 4MW, AirTrunk MEL2 354MW+

• No date yet: Syncline Energy's Victorian AI Hub at Plumpton at 2.4GW of power demand, with no opening date for its first phase and full build targeted for 2035, NEXTDC M5 at up to 1.2GW and M4 at 150MW, Keppel's Hazelwood campus near Morwell at 720MW, CDC Laverton at more than 400MW, STACK MEL02 at 252MW, Vantage MEL1 at 64MW of IT load, and AirTrunk's seven-building Mickleham campus, lodged for planning in July 2026 with no MW figure published

Queensland

• 2027: Zerra Western Downs Building One 360MW for Anthropic, DigiCo BNE3 19.6MW, NEXTDC SC2 Maroochydore about 1MW

• No date yet: the other three Western Downs buildings, Quinbrook's Supernode at Brendale with up to 800MW of power supply

South Australia

• 2028: IREN Bundey 800MW

• No date yet: Firmus's Tailem Bend and Stirling North sites, about 1.0GW and 1.3GW of IT load at full build, and 1414 Degrees' Aurora precinct at up to 1GW

Tasmania

• 2026: Firmus St Leonards 44MW

• 2027: VIRIDIS Burnie, about 1MW

• No date yet: Firmus's 288MW Bell Bay site (approved 25 August 2026), Firmus Wesley Vale at 26MW initially, six confidential proposals totalling at least 500MW

Western Australia

• 2026: CDC Maddington, first stage of up to 200MW

Northern Territory

• 2026: NEXTDC D2 Darwin about 1.5MW

• No date yet: Beetaloo Digital's 2GW gas-powered proposal at Weddell, Energy North's 1GW Project Ares at Murranji Station

Operating capacity is forecast to reach 3.9GW by 2030

Total operating capacity for each year is published only as a forecast, and only nationally and for Sydney and Melbourne. Industry body Data Centres Australia and researcher DC Byte forecast it on one measure, the power available to servers in finished data halls.

Source: Data Centres Australia and DC Byte, Australian Data Centre Forecast Report, Issue 2, October 2026, data to 30 September 2026. Figures for 2026 to 2030 are forecasts. The report does not forecast other cities or states, and its figures are rounded to 0.1GW, so the rest of the country cannot be worked out by subtracting Sydney and Melbourne from the national total.