AI demand drives data centre capacity expansion

A major expansion to Macquarie Data Centres’ IC3 Super West facility in Sydney will increase its total IT load to 45 megawatts — a 41% increase on the original plans — in order to facilitate the rapidly rising demand for power- and data-hungry AI workloads.

The company said the new expansion is the ideal home for hyperscale cloud customers, with Group Executive David Hirst suggesting designs for upcoming centres will surpass client requirements.

“According to CSIRO, the Australian economy could gain AU$315 billion by 2028 through the integration of AI. However, unlocking the full potential of AI hinges on the availability of advanced AI-ready data centres. To ensure optimal performance in training and inference of these AI models, we are designing our upcoming data centres to meet and surpass the demanding requirements for higher densities,” he said.

IC3 Super West will be able to efficiently support the high densities and multi-megawatt power requirements of new AI chip and server infrastructure. The state-of-the-art data centre will also have the cooling requirements to match, by optimising the latest in both air and liquid cooling technologies.

This new data centre will be the third edition to the provider’s Macquarie Park Data Centre Campus in Sydney’s premier North Zone. The increase in planned capacity will mean the total campus IT load could reach 63 MW.

Macquarie Data Centres’ growth plans were bolstered by an AU$160 million capital raise in June 2023. The Australian data centre provider announced that the capital raise would be put towards its future-focused expansion strategy which involves acquiring sites in Sydney to accelerate growth and support the AI megatrend.

Macquarie has voiced its support for AI innovation in Australia and is committed to strengthening its sovereign data centre and cloud services operations to facilitate this. The company also recently added two new ultra-secure zones in its existing Sydney and Canberra data centre campus as part of a wider set of upgrades.