As Melbourne faces power and land constraints highlighted in recent market reports, the Victorian Government is streamlining approval processes to compete with Sydney's dominance and position as the go-to destination for AI-ready infrastructure investment.
Victoria currently hosts 96% of its data centres in Melbourne [certifiedstrategic.com data]. With the Victorian Government's $5.5M Sustainable Data Centre Action Plan and new streamlined approvals, operators like NEXTDC (recent $2B Fishermans Bend announcement) and international investors are increasingly choosing Melbourne for AI-ready, high-density deployments despite Sydney's traditional market leadership.
Related Facilities:
NEXTDC Melbourne facilities (M1, M2, M3)
AirTrunk MEL facilities
Equinix Melbourne sites
It is a high-risk strategy for an unpopular Labor government that goes to the polls seeking a fourth term in November, amid a cost-of-living crisis in which surging power prices are a key concern.
It is also very different from NSW, where the Minns government is looking at making data centres pay for the extra burden they put on power and water networks so households do not foot the bill from surging demand.
Climate Council figures show Australia’s data centres consume about 2 per cent of the power in the national grid, due to grow to 6 per cent by 2030 on the growth of AI and cloud computing.
Pearson said shifting computing power from “grossly inefficient” small-scale individual computers to data centres would free up some resources. He also said data centre operators secure long-term offtake power agreements with renewable energy providers, but did not give any examples.
Written by CertifiedStrategic Editorial Team
CertifiedStrategic.com - Australia's independent data centre index tracking capacity, certification and market news across the country's critical infrastructure providers.