At a glance
- JLL brought a 96MW data centre development site to market in Sydney's northern precinct on 15 August, with a planning application the agency says is lodged and not approved, and income already on the site.
- City of Ryde told the state's data centre inquiry that Macquarie Park holds 12 data centres existing and proposed, five built or approved and seven awaiting determination.
- NEXTDC advertises more than 750 partners reachable from its S1 building in the precinct, with on-ramps to Azure, AWS, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and Oracle Cloud.
- Ausgrid has asked the energy regulator to approve an estimated A$162.3 million for a new Macquarie Park substation, citing five data centre connection applications.
- On Cushman & Wakefield's Australian range, a 96MW build is a construction programme of about A$1.06 billion to A$1.61 billion.
JLL lists a 96MW site in Sydney's north
JLL brought a data centre development site to market on 15 August in what it calls Sydney's northern data centre precinct. The campaign material describes a planning application lodged for 96MW of IT load, the power drawn by the computing equipment rather than by the whole building, and states that the application is lodged and not approved. It lists existing income on the site, immediate proximity to operating data centres and connectivity on the doorstep, and calls the parcel one of the very last of scale in the precinct not already owned by a data centre operator.
Fibre already in the ground, an established cluster of customers and carriers, separation between paired buildings, zoning that permits the use and a position in the connection queue all attach to a location rather than to a title deed. That is what a data centre buyer is assessing, and Macquarie Park is where the five most often sit together.
Cushman & Wakefield's Asia Pacific construction cost guide, published on 21 April 2026, puts Australian build costs at US$7.9 million to US$12.1 million per megawatt, or A$11.01 million to A$16.8 million. A 96MW facility on that range is a construction programme of about A$1.06 billion to A$1.61 billion. Construction dominates the total, and the land price for this site has not been disclosed.
NEXTDC offers dual interconnects between S1, S2 and S3
NEXTDC operates S1 and S2 in Macquarie Park, at 16MW and 30MW of IT capacity. Its S1 page lists "dual, geodiverse managed and dark fibre Data Centre Interconnects (DCIs) available between S3, S2 and S1". S3 is at Artarmon, so those links run between two northern suburbs.
A building opening inside an existing set of links inherits them, while a site further out has to fund and build its own. New routes mean civil works through built-up corridors.
Five major clouds connect directly at S1
NEXTDC advertises that customers at S1 reach more than 750 partners from the building, with direct connections into Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud and Oracle Cloud. A business renting a rack is buying access to that roster as much as the floor space.
A precinct that already holds carriers and clouds is easier to sell into than one that does not, which is why operators keep returning to a small number of addresses. Macquarie Data Centres, part of Macquarie Technology Group, has run a campus in the precinct for years.
Paired buildings need to be close and independent
Active-active designs run one workload live in two buildings, so that losing a building does not interrupt the service. The pair has to be close enough that data moves between them without noticeable delay, and far enough apart on separate power supplies and separate cable routes that one incident cannot take both.
NEXTDC markets the area as the "Macquarie Park availability zone" and places its planned S5 inside it. Macquarie Technology paid A$240 million in July 2026 for a Talavera Road site it plans as a campus of about 200MW.
Ryde's 2024 rezoning barred data centres from E2 land
Ryde's planning rules treat two classes of business land differently. On E3 Productivity Support land, which covers much of the office-park corridor, a data centre is permitted with consent.
A 2024 amendment made data centres a prohibited use on E2 Commercial Centre land nearer the metro stations, effective with the Macquarie Park rezoning on 27 November 2024, with applications already lodged permitted to continue. City of Ryde's submission to the state's data centre inquiry records the change, and counts 12 data centres existing and proposed in the suburb, five built or approved and seven awaiting determination. The same rezoning carries capacity for 9,600 new homes.
NSW has promised 12-month approvals against A$136 billion of data centre proposals. Stockland's 76.4MW project at 1-5 Khartoum Road, valued at A$718.26 million, was approved on 11 March 2026.
| Project | Size and value | Where it stands |
|---|---|---|
| Stockland, 1-5 Khartoum Road | 76.4MW, A$718.26m | Approved 11 March 2026 |
| ISPT, 6-8 Julius Avenue, North Ryde | up to 170MW | More information requested |
| NEXTDC S5, 269 Lane Cove Road | 90MW | More information requested |
| Macquarie Technology, Talavera Road | about 200MW | Site bought July 2026, application to come |
Source: NSW Planning Portal major projects register and company announcements, August 2026. Operators report power differently, so these figures are indicative rather than like for like. The site brought to market on 15 August is not among them.
Ausgrid has asked the regulator to fund a new substation
Cushman & Wakefield's Andrew Green, its Asia Pacific head of data centres, said in April that "in established markets such as Sydney and Auckland, access to power and grid capacity is emerging as the key constraint on new supply, influencing site selection, delivery timelines and feasibility".
A data centre draws its electricity through a substation, the point where the high voltage network is stepped down and a large customer is physically connected to it. Ausgrid has lodged an application with the Australian Energy Regulator for a new substation in the Macquarie Park area, which it has named Wallumatta: three transformers with provision for a fourth, at an estimated A$162.3 million. It tells the regulator it has received four connection applications from data centre customers seeking to connect in the area, and a fifth from an existing data centre seeking to expand.
Customer connections are targeted for the end of the 2029 financial year, and the application remains open before the regulator with no determination made. The proposal sits within a wider NSW move toward asking data centres to fund the grid capacity they unlock, and alongside AEMO's 9GW connection queue.
Talavera Road traded at about A$7,000 a square metre
Macquarie Technology paid A$240 million in July for about 34,200 square metres on Talavera Road, or roughly A$7,017 a square metre. Commercial Real Estate reported in August 2025, citing market sources, that NEXTDC and CDC paid about A$1,368 and A$1,434 a square metre for 2024 acquisitions at Eastern Creek and Marsden Park, when ordinary industrial land traded around A$1,250.
Talavera Road is about 5.6 times that industrial rate, and roughly five times what the two western Sydney sites fetched. The campus is planned at about 200MW across 3.42 hectares, which on Cushman & Wakefield's range is a construction programme of roughly A$2.2 billion to A$3.4 billion.
Against that programme the land is about 7 to 10 per cent of land plus construction cost, or roughly A$1.2 million for each megawatt of planned capacity. Macquarie Technology bought the site with no development application lodged and the grid connection still to arrange.