At a glance
GreenSquare said on 19 October 2026 that the first stage of GreenSquareDC SYD1, its data centre campus at Norwest in Sydney's north-west, is operational.
The building is a former IBM and Kyndryl data centre that opened in 1995. GreenSquare delivered the stage in eight months, with main construction starting in February 2026.
GreenSquare chief executive Charles Penny, in comments exclusive to Certified Strategic, said the work needed new critical mechanical and electrical infrastructure, and credited modular construction, a coordinated supply chain and fast decisions for the pace.
SYD1's first customer, Sharon AI, will install about 8,200 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs under a 15MW agreement with an initial term of 10 years.
The building was a 4MW data centre before the redevelopment and is now rated at about 15MW, in line with the 275% increase in IT capacity GreenSquare reports.
GreenSquare projects a power usage effectiveness of 1.20 for the stage, inside the 1.25 design benchmark in the NSW data centre guidelines.
GreenSquare, the Sydney data centre developer backed by programs managed by Swiss investment firm Partners Group and also known as GreenSquareDC, announced on 19 October 2026 that the first stage of SYD1 at Norwest Business Park is operational. The building opened as a data centre in 1995 and was run by IBM and later Kyndryl, the infrastructure business IBM spun off. GreenSquare kept the concrete slab and most of the structure, moved the data halls to the ground floor and fitted liquid-to-chip cooling, which pipes coolant directly onto the processors. Keeping the existing structure, rather than demolishing it, is how the company says it cut the carbon locked into new concrete and steel.
Image: GreenSquare
In comments given exclusively to Certified Strategic, GreenSquare's chief executive, Charles Penny, said the existing building was a starting point and credited the pace to the engineering, the delivery methods and the people behind the build. "While the existing structure provided a valuable starting point, it would be misleading to suggest that this was simply a refurbishment of an existing data centre," he said. "Delivering 15MW of high-performance, AI-ready infrastructure required substantial engineering, redesign and construction, together with the installation of new critical mechanical and electrical infrastructure."
"What made the eight-month delivery possible was our ability to challenge conventional construction methodologies, make decisions quickly and work collaboratively with our delivery partners," he said. "We adopted innovative engineering solutions, modular construction techniques and a carefully coordinated supply chain to compress traditional delivery programmes without compromising quality, safety or performance."
"Ultimately, the existing building created an opportunity, but it was the ingenuity, expertise and determination of our people and partners that enabled us to deliver at this pace," he said.
Sharon AI, the Nasdaq-listed Australian seller of AI computing, is the first tenant and will install about 8,200 NVIDIA Blackwell Ultra GPUs, the chips that train and run AI models. GreenSquare named Sharon AI as its customer on 21 September 2026.
The Norwest building was a 4MW data centre before the redevelopment
Data Center Dynamics reported in April 2025 that the existing facility was a 4MW data centre. GreenSquare lists the first stage at 15MW across 2,400m². That is 3.75 times the original 4MW, in line with the 275% increase in IT capacity GreenSquare reports within the original building footprint.
The planning record shows the path. GreenSquare lodged a development application for alterations to the existing data centre on 25 March 2025, and the Sydney Central City Planning Panel approved it on 4 September 2025 with a capital investment value of A$84.7 million. The Hills Shire Council's assessment report puts the upgraded facility at 14.9MW and records the original data centre approval in June 1993.
The approval also splits the land into two lots so the site can take separate power feeders. The approval limits the first stage to 10 full-time-equivalent staff on site at any one time.
Measure | Before redevelopment | SYD1 Stage 1 |
|---|---|---|
Capacity | 4MW | About 15MW |
Cooling | Cooling towers | Closed loop, with no evaporative cooling for about 96% of the year |
Design power usage effectiveness | Not disclosed | 1.20 |
Source: Data Center Dynamics, April 2025; GreenSquare announcement, 19 October 2026.
Sharon AI's 15MW agreement runs 10 years from handover
Sharon AI's quarterly report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, filed in August 2026, records a 15MW "long-term data center services agreement" with GreenSquare signed in March 2026. The initial term is 120 months from the date the space is ready for service, which the filing targeted for 26 September 2026, and Sharon AI pays a monthly fee for each kilowatt it has reserved.
GreenSquare's release says Sharon AI "will deploy" about 8,200 Blackwell Ultra GPUs, which run on NVIDIA's HGX B300 platform, at the facility. Sharon AI's US$1.25 billion contract with Indian cloud provider ESDS, disclosed in April 2026, covers about 8,200 NVIDIA B300 GPUs to be delivered from a data centre in Australia.
SYD1 had 400 people on site at peak
Main construction began in February 2026. GreenSquare says around 400 people worked on the site at its busiest, with crews working around the clock during critical stages, and that the project logged more than 350,000 hours without a lost-time injury. Builder Erilyan constructed and delivered the facility, and Fredon handled the electrical work and commissioning.
"We saw an opportunity to give a 30-year-old data centre a completely new purpose," said Joshua Martens, GreenSquare's chief technology officer. He said the redesigned layout, prefabricated systems and newer technology had produced a facility "that can support some of today's most demanding compute requirements while using resources far more efficiently".
Putting the data halls on the ground floor meant the heavier, denser AI equipment needed no extra structural reinforcement, according to GreenSquare.
SYD1 Stage 1 is designed within the NSW efficiency benchmarks
Power usage effectiveness compares the total power a data centre draws with the power that reaches its servers, so a figure of 1.20 means 20% on top for cooling and other systems. GreenSquare puts SYD1 Stage 1 at a projected 1.20, with potable water use below 0.1 litres per kilowatt hour.
The NSW data centre guidelines of 17 August 2026 set design targets for new applications, including a power usage effectiveness of 1.25 or better with drinking water use of 1.0 litres per kilowatt hour or less, under Measure 1. SYD1's first stage was approved in September 2025, before the guidelines were issued, and its design figures sit inside both benchmarks.
The new cooling replaced the building's original water-hungry cooling towers. GreenSquare expects rainwater harvesting to cover about 10% of the cooling water it does use. An assessment by engineering firm TTW, published by GreenSquare in June 2026, found the redevelopment kept 92% of the building's existing structural carbon, or 5,402 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. GreenSquare's October release puts the structural upfront carbon per kilowatt of IT capacity 93% below a new build.
What to watch
The GPU installation. Sharon AI's report for the September 2026 quarter is the next filing that can confirm its Blackwell Ultra GPUs are running at Norwest and which customer they serve.
The 80MW second stage. The NSW Investment Delivery Authority, which fast-tracks large projects, endorsed support for a proposed 80MW second stage in March 2026, taking SYD1 toward its design of more than 100MW among the data centres in Western Sydney.
Melbourne. GreenSquare's other campus is a 240MW plan at Spotswood, and the company says it is expanding its Australian portfolio now that SYD1's first stage is delivered.