At a glance
CDC Data Centres plans a 1.4GW, A$15 billion data centre campus at Gregadoo, 11km south of Wagga Wagga in the NSW Riverina.
At up to 1.4GW it approaches the roughly 1.5GW operating nationally, and matches the scale of Anthropic's July 2026 tender for at least 1.4GW of Australian capacity.
It would be nearly three times the 504MW approved for CDC at Marsden Park in Sydney's west, and larger than AirTrunk's proposed 1.2GW SYD4.
The site is 1.3km from a Transgrid terminal station upgraded for EnergyConnect, the transmission link between New South Wales and South Australia.
CDC's scoping report says the investment would be wholly privately funded, with no state or federal contribution sought.
CDC Data Centres plans a 1.4GW data centre campus at Gregadoo, 11km south of Wagga Wagga, with an estimated development cost of A$15 billion. Its scoping report, dated 16 September 2026 and published on the NSW Planning Portal, starts the state approval process for four buildings on rural land beside the Wagga Wagga terminal station.
One regional campus of up to 1.4GW would come close to the roughly 1.5GW that Data Centres Australia, the industry body, counts as operating across the country. CDC describes it as sovereign, highly secure compute for government, Defence, research, enterprise and AI workloads, delivered by an Australian-owned operator.
Up to 1.4GW puts Gregadoo among Australia's gigawatt proposals
Campus or benchmark | Capacity | Status |
|---|---|---|
Australia's operating data centre fleet | About 1.5GW | Data Centres Australia, July 2026 |
Zerra DC, Western Downs Digital Park, Kogan | 1.44GW, four buildings | Filed August 2026 |
CDC, Gregadoo, Wagga Wagga | Up to 1.4GW power demand, four buildings | Scoping report, September 2026 |
Anthropic's Australian capacity tender | At least 1.4GW | Reported July 2026 |
AirTrunk SYD4, Kemps Creek | 1.2GW planned | Proposed |
CDC, Marsden Park | 504MW, scalable to 1GW | Approved November 2025 |
Source: CDC scoping report SSD-144289240; Australian Financial Review; Western Downs Regional Council filing; CDC Sydney campus page; Data Centres Australia. Figures are as each source states them and are not all measured on the same basis.
Anthropic's July 2026 tender for at least 1.4GW of Australian capacity was, in Data Centres Australia's words, a step-change in demand. Zerra DC's 1.44GW campus at Kogan in Queensland is the one proposal in the table larger than Gregadoo, and in Sydney's west AirTrunk's SYD4 at Kemps Creek is planned at 1.2GW.
CDC's A$15 billion estimate equals about 30 per cent of the A$50.3 billion of state significant data centre projects the NSW Government counted in July 2026, on Certified Strategic's calculations. Infratil put CDC's leasable pipeline at 3.9GW out to the 2040 financial year when it revalued the business that month. The guide to Australia's new data centre capacity from 2026 to 2030 will list Gregadoo by year once CDC sets a target date.
CDC plans four buildings with 189,325 square metres of floor space
Gregadoo would give CDC a third region alongside its campuses in Canberra and Sydney, which are listed site by site in the directory of Australian data centres. The campus's first listed objective is to support growing demand in New South Wales for artificial intelligence computing, data storage and connectivity, the workloads an AI data centre is built to run.
Element | What the scoping report proposes |
|---|---|
Buildings | Four single-storey buildings, 189,325 square metres of floor space in total |
Capacity | Up to 1.4GW, through a dedicated connection to the 330kV network |
Estimated cost | About A$15 billion, excluding GST |
Staging | Staged, with timing to be set in the environmental impact statement |
Backup power | Up to 384 diesel generators |
Rooftop solar | 20,160 panels with 13.1MW of peak output |
Footprint | Buildings on about 63.4 of the 103.8 hectares, the rest kept in rural use |
Source: Willowtree Planning, Scoping Report for CDC Data Centres Pty Ltd, SSD-144289240, 16 September 2026.
The site is 1.3km from a terminal station upgraded for EnergyConnect
The report calls the site's proximity to the 330kV Wagga Wagga terminal station "the primary reason" it was selected, because a connection there needs no new transmission corridor. Transgrid finished upgrading that station in June 2025 to take new transmission connections as part of EnergyConnect. Transgrid, which owns and runs the high-voltage network across New South Wales, said in its 2026 Transmission Annual Planning Report, published on 10 September 2026, that existing capacity in the Sydney region is largely committed. The same report listed the Wagga area among places that could host large new loads.
Through Lumea, Transgrid's commercial arm, CDC has started the connection process and proposes to fund its own connection and the associated network augmentation. Under Transgrid's data centre connection rules, capacity is held once a connection contract is signed, and confirmed when the developer shows within three months that it has state planning approval, land, construction contracts, equipment orders and finance.
Capacity of this kind "is presently concentrated in the Sydney metropolitan area", the filing says, and the campus would establish "critical digital infrastructure of national significance within regional NSW". It compares Wagga Wagga's climate with that of Canberra, CDC's home market, and records other proposed data centre developments near the terminal station. Gregadoo adds to regional NSW activity that includes Sharon AI's purchase of the former Visy paper mill at Albury, reported on 9 September 2026.
The A$15 billion is privately funded and comes with a regional skills program
CDC's filing calls the campus "one of the largest private infrastructure investments proposed for regional NSW", wholly funded by the operator with no state or Commonwealth funding contribution sought. A skills and training pipeline with Charles Sturt University, TAFE NSW and local schools would include apprenticeships and traineeships, local-first hiring, and research and compute access for the university.
Piles, precast concrete panels, reinforcing, switchboards and cabling are among the items CDC would source locally where feasible, and a community benefit program would be developed with the council. The report also names RAAF Base Wagga and the Army's Kapooka training centre as sources of skilled workers in the region.
CDC seeks a site-specific rezoning alongside state approval
CDC is seeking an amendment to the Wagga Wagga local plan that would permit a data centre on the RU1 Primary Production site while keeping its rural zoning. The amendment will be assessed with the State Significant Development application, the NSW pathway for large projects. The Minister for Planning or a delegate is the consent authority, and the Planning Portal listed the project at the assessment requirements stage on 23 September 2026. CDC's Marsden Park campus was approved in 12 months through the state's Investment Delivery Authority.
The proposal is tested against the six principles in the NSW data centre guidelines, which offer a faster assessment to projects that contract new renewable supply for ten years. CDC will pursue power purchase and firming agreements supporting additional renewable generation and storage, and commits to matching operational demand with renewable supply from New South Wales.
Wagga Wagga City Council owns the site, Lot 2 DP1143881, which it bought in July 2025. It also owns the depot land next door at 132 Ashfords Road, where CDC proposes a temporary construction access. CDC's report records multiple meetings with the council, whose consent as landowner forms part of the application.
Backup power, noise and water are set for detailed assessment
The fuel stored for the backup generators, up to about 6,400 tonnes, is above the 2,000-tonne threshold in the state's Protection of the Environment Operations Act, so a licence from the NSW Environment Protection Authority is likely to be required. For noise, CDC proposes a perimeter earth mound, acoustic enclosures on the generators and treatment of the chillers. It will model a worst case of every cooling fan and chiller at full capacity against the EPA's Noise Policy for Industry, the policy that governs data centre noise in New South Wales.
The cooling strategy is designed to minimise drinking water use, with the choice between water-based and mechanical cooling confirmed in detailed design. Permanent supply is expected to come from an extension of a Riverina Water main about 2.6km away, with recycled-water or offset arrangements proposed with the utility, in line with the guidelines.
What to watch
The assessment requirements. The planning department issues them next. The guidelines commit to issuing them within two months of a request for a project that meets the performance measures.
Landowner consent. The council's consent as owner of the site and the access land next door forms part of the application.
The connection contract. Signing would reserve capacity at the Wagga Wagga terminal station, with three months to confirm it.
The environmental impact statement. It will set the cooling method, the water demand, the construction and operating jobs and the staging of the four buildings.
Other proposals at Gregadoo. The report says the environmental impact statement will assess cumulative impacts with other data centre proposals near the terminal station.