NEXTDC finds site for new Melbourne data centre

Hot on the heels of acquiring a site for its second data centre in Brisbane, data-centre-as-a-service provider NEXTDC has announced it has secured the location for its second Melbourne facility.

NEXTDC will invest up to $85 million over the next 12–18 months to acquire the land, build the base and purchase associated infrastructure. Construction is expected to be complete by the end of FY17.

The new M2 data centre will be located in Tullamarine, 17 km north-west of the Melbourne CBD. It will have an initial capacity of 2 MW of IT load and be scalable to 25 MW at full fit-out.

Construction of the facility is expected to support up to 200 jobs, NEXTDC said, and the company will tap Australian- or Victorian-based suppliers for construction and prefabricated material production wherever possible.

“Our strategic new location in Tullamarine provides customers with a resilient, highly connected facility to host their mission-critical infrastructure and connect to a choice of cloud services,” NEXTDC CEO Craig Scroggie commented.

“This investment into Victoria’s growing IT industry and Australia’s wider business economy reflects the ongoing customer demand we’re experiencing for NEXTDC’s premium data centre services.”

Victorian Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade Philip Dalidakis added that the new facility “will be a regional presence to some of the world’s largest cloud computing platforms and further cement Victoria's reputation as a hub for ICT and cybersecurity investment”.

Once the new Brisbane and Melbourne data centres are at full fit-out, NEXTDC plans to have a total data centre capacity of 73 MW of IT load across seven facilities nationwide.

Image courtesy of Yun Huang Yong under CC