At a glance
Data Centres Australia named winners in seven categories at its first Excellence Awards, held at the Palladium, Crown Melbourne, on 8 September.
Equinix SY5 won Data Centre of the Year for an upgrade that augmented existing data halls to support more than 150 per cent of their original design capacity.
Robin Khuda of AirTrunk, Greg Boorer of CDC and Craig Scroggie of NEXTDC shared the peer-nominated Industry Achievement Award, and their companies hold the top three places in our June Power Rankings.
CDC won Sustainability Excellence for a 16-facility portfolio, with net zero operations reached four years ahead of plan.
Kapitol, builder of Stage 6 of NEXTDC's M2 Melbourne data centre, was highly commended in four of the seven categories.
Data Centres Australia (DCA), the peak body launched in November 2025 with ten founding members, held its first Excellence Awards on Tuesday 8 September 2026, during Data Center World Australia in Melbourne. DCA named 22 organisations across the seven categories, six of which carried highly commended entries behind the winner.
The awards are the first the Australian industry has run for itself. Khuda, Boorer and Scroggie, the three Industry Achievement recipients, run the three operators at the top of Certified Strategic's June 2026 ranking of data centres in Australia: NEXTDC first, AirTrunk second and CDC third. Six of the ten ranked operators were recognised on the night, and the supplier categories brought in names from outside the operator ranks, from a construction contractor to a maker of pits and covers.
Khuda, Boorer and Scroggie share the Industry Achievement Award
The peer-nominated award went jointly to AirTrunk founder and chief executive Robin Khuda, CDC founder and chief executive Greg Boorer, and NEXTDC chief executive and managing director Craig Scroggie. DCA's citation credits the three with building businesses of international scale on Australian soil over 15 years or more and, between them, attracting tens of billions of dollars of foreign investment. The nomination, quoted in chief executive Belinda Dennett's post announcing the recipients, said the three chose to sit with direct competitors and agree shared policy positions; Dennett adds that all three companies were founding members and key parts of the two-year informal precursor to DCA.
Dennett's post puts data centre construction at A$19.8 billion of economic activity to 2030, supporting 18,930 additional jobs, and ongoing operations at A$5.6 billion a year by that date. In the June ranking NEXTDC leads on 12 certified enclaves and 544MW of contracted capacity still to build, AirTrunk on more than 1.2GW live across five campuses, and CDC on 12 Certified Strategic facilities with 265MW under construction.
Equinix SY5 wins Data Centre of the Year
The flagship award went to Equinix for SY5, which DCA's citation describes as the flagship facility of the Equinix Sydney campus. The citation singles out an operations and engineering upgrade that augmented existing data halls to support more than 150 per cent of their original design capacity rather than rebuilding them, with sustainability outcomes demonstrated alongside. Equinix sits fourth in the June ranking, with CA1 certified as a facility and ten certified enclaves across Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Three highly commended entries sat behind it: Erilyan and STACK Infrastructure for the STACK MEL01B hyperscale campus, Macquarie Data Centres for IC3 Super West, and Kapitol for Stage 6 of NEXTDC's M2 Melbourne data centre.
The winners, category by category
Category | Winner | Highly commended |
|---|---|---|
Industry Achievement Award | Robin Khuda (AirTrunk), Greg Boorer (CDC Data Centres), Craig Scroggie (NEXTDC) | Single award |
Data Centre of the Year | Equinix (SY5, Sydney) | Erilyan and STACK Infrastructure (STACK MEL01B); Macquarie Data Centres (IC3 Super West); Kapitol (NEXTDC M2 Stage 6) |
Sustainability Excellence | CDC Data Centres | GreenSquareDC; Equinix; Kapitol; Schneider Electric |
Innovation Achievement | NEXTDC and Vertiv (Liquid Cooling Centre of Excellence, S3 Sydney) | Evolution Precast; Telstra and Ciena; Project Advisory Group; Macquarie Data Centres |
Community and Stakeholder Engagement | GreenSquareDC (MEL1) | NEXTDC; Microsoft; STACK Infrastructure |
Workforce Development | Microsoft (Data Centre Academy) | Kapitol; SKS Technologies; Connect Group; Schneider Electric |
Ecosystem Partner of the Year | Access Covers Australia | Aurecon; Kapitol; Origin Energy; Drac Mechanical |
Source: Data Centres Australia Excellence Awards winners page, 8 September 2026.
CDC's sustainability award covers a portfolio of 16 facilities; the citation records a minimal water-use cooling design in place since 2007, energy use offset 100 per cent with renewables, and net zero operations reached four years ahead of plan. NEXTDC and Vertiv won Innovation Achievement for the Liquid Cooling Centre of Excellence inside NEXTDC's S3 Sydney facility, a live liquid-cooled AI environment where customers test and tune hardware under operating conditions; the what is an AI data centre explainer covers why high-density AI hardware needs liquid cooling.
GreenSquareDC won Community and Stakeholder Engagement for its MEL1 program at Spotswood, the former petroleum depot where the company has applied for a 240MW data centre. The citation credits engagement that went beyond planning and development requirements, run at senior executive level. Microsoft won Workforce Development for its fully funded Data Centre Academy, which opened at Victoria University's Footscray Nicholson campus in March 2026 after starting in New South Wales; the citation puts its graduation rate to date at 100 per cent. Employers hiring into the same pipeline list roles on the Certified Strategic data centre jobs board.
Access Covers Australia wins Ecosystem Partner of the Year
Access Covers Australia won the ecosystem partner category for made-to-order pits and covers supplied to major projects across the sector; the citation credits precision delivered at large scale, with significant project time and cost savings, in an environment where requirements can change daily. Kapitol, the builder of Stage 6 of NEXTDC's M2 Melbourne data centre, was highly commended in four categories: Data Centre of the Year, Sustainability Excellence, Workforce Development and Ecosystem Partner of the Year. Schneider Electric, STACK Infrastructure and Macquarie Data Centres were each highly commended twice. Dennett's post describes the ecosystem field as running from major global companies to local manufacturers.
How the winners map to the June Power Rankings
June 2026 rank | Operator | Awards result |
|---|---|---|
1 | NEXTDC | Won Innovation Achievement with Vertiv; Scroggie, Industry Achievement; highly commended, Community and Stakeholder Engagement |
2 | AirTrunk | Khuda, Industry Achievement |
3 | CDC | Won Sustainability Excellence; Boorer, Industry Achievement |
4 | Equinix | Won Data Centre of the Year; highly commended, Sustainability Excellence |
5 | Macquarie Data Centres | Highly commended, Data Centre of the Year and Innovation Achievement |
9 | GreenSquareDC | Won Community and Stakeholder Engagement; highly commended, Sustainability Excellence |
Source: Data Centres Australia, 8 September 2026; ranking positions from Certified Strategic's June 2026 Power Rankings.
STACK Infrastructure, highly commended twice, for MEL01B and for community engagement, is a name to carry into the next edition of the ranking. Microsoft, the Workforce Development winner, is a hyperscaler and sits with the hyperscalers in Australia outside the colocation ranking.
What to watch
The first 6MW of Macquarie Data Centres' IC3 Super West, highly commended for Data Centre of the Year, is due to finish in September 2026, with a 13MW stage behind it by June 2027. GreenSquareDC's Spotswood application sits with Victoria's Department of Transport and Planning, with operation targeted for 2027, and the MEL1 engagement program continues through the assessment.