Data centers in Australia

A capital-city base and regional megaprojects

Australia has 168 facilities in the atlas from 55 operators, and the operating base is concentrated in two cities. Sydney has 43 facilities and Melbourne 26; together they hold 41% of the national count and 58% of all published capacity. The other capitals have plenty of sites but far less published capacity: Brisbane has 18 facilities stating 40 MW between them, Adelaide 13 stating 6.8 MW, Perth 15 with 230 MW and Canberra 14 with 165 MW.

Australian operators publish their size slightly more often than those in the other two country analyses: 55 of 147 operating facilities publish a capacity (37%), against 35% in India and 28% in Malaysia, and they add up to 3,573 MW in operation, more than India's published operating total of 1,581 MW from a catalogue about half the size.

The pipeline has moved inland

Only 6 Australian projects are recorded as under construction, publishing 1,025 MW, of which 94% is on Sydney and Melbourne campuses. The announced list is far larger: 15 projects stating 5,247 MW. The biggest of them are not in a capital city at all: Western Downs Digital Park (Zerra DC) at Dalby (Kogan) (1,440 MW); CDC Wagga Wagga (Gregadoo) at Wagga Wagga (1,400 MW); IREN Bundey Campus at Bundey, SA (800 MW). Those 3 regional proposals account for 3,640 MW, or 69% of all announced Australian capacity. They are planned in regional areas, far from the fibre-dense city centres where the existing stock sits.

Operators

NEXTDC has the most facilities (25), and every one of them publishes a figure, 1,726 MW in total. CDC Data Centres has 14 records but the largest published total, 3,210 MW, much of it in announced campuses. AirTrunk's 5 facilities state 1,189 MW. Equinix runs 18 Australian sites but publishes power for only 1, so its weight is visible in the count column and nearly absent from the megawatt column.

Electricity and grid rules

Business electricity is expensive by regional standards: the power dataset puts the average at $0.252 per kWh across the National Electricity Market states, against $0.109 in India and $0.135 in Malaysia, and operators in Sydney and Melbourne increasingly contract firmed renewable supply to manage volatile prices. The grid rule-maker is also preparing for loads of this size: a draft rule from the Australian Energy Market Commission would define data centres of 30 MW or more as large inverter-based loads and require them to ride through voltage and frequency disturbances rather than disconnect. The atlas's incentives dataset holds no Australian programme at the moment; none is shown rather than one guessed.

The regional proposals show where developers now look for sites: large parcels near substations and transmission lines. Landowners with land like that can list it at megawattacres.com.

Who operates data centers in Australia

17 of 55 operators shown: the largest by number of facilities, plus any of the six largest by published MW. "Pipeline" counts sites under construction or announced.

Australia by city and metro

Australia: projects under construction and announced

Electricity price for data centers in Australia

$0.252 per kWh (range $0.180–$0.260), business tariff. Business average (NEM states; GlobalPetrolPrices, Dec 2025); Sydney and Melbourne DCs increasingly contract firmed renewables PPAs to hedge volatile grid prices.

Australia: incentives and restrictions

Datasets behind this page: facility count (168 facilities); operators table (55 operators); mw pipeline (19 projects with published MW); power tariff (Australia $0.252/kWh); metros / cities (39 cities, 1 metro groupings); incentives / restrictions (0 incentives, 1 restrictions). How they are compiled: methodology. Sources: see Sources.