Where does Australia stand in the APAC data centre market?

Australia currently has 1,145MW operational, 265MW under construction and 1443MW planned data centres.

In a recent report, Cushman and Wakefield revealed that Australia continues to be at the forefront of data centre development and capacity. More than 80% of operational capacity in APAC is concentrated in five markets being Australia, India, Japan, mainland China and Singapore.

According to Alex Moffat, Cushman & Wakefield’s Director & Data Centre Advisory Team Lead, Australia – Industrial, across APAC, 9.7GW is currently operational, with an additional 3.3GW under construction and 8.5GW in planning stages. For Australia 1145MW is currently operational, 265MW under construction and 1443MW planned.

“Sydney continues to be the largest data centre market in Australia with 63% of the total operational capacity for the country. Sydney is one of the top 5 cities for data centres in APAC alongside Beijing, Mumbai, Shanghai and Tokyo which are categorised as powerhouse markets with each city forecast to exceed 2GW of capacity in the next 7 to 10 years. Cumulatively, these 5 powerhouse cities account for 54% of the operational capacity in all of APAC,” Moffat added.

Here’s more from Cushman and Wakefield:

Operational capacity in Sydney has increased by 57MW over the past 6 months. Despite this additional capacity coming online, the vacancy rate for Sydney has decreased from 17% to 12% over the same time. The combination of strategic geographic location and subsea cable connectivity will ensure that Sydney retains its status as a powerhouse market in the region.

Eight cities in APAC have already reached 500MW or are on-track to surpass that level by 2024 including Sydney which is operating at the same scale as Beijing, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Seoul, Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo. While Shanghai and Beijing have already surpassed 1GW in operational capacity, Sydney, Singapore and Tokyo are expected to exceed 1GW of operational capacity by 2026. Melbourne is also forecast to surpass the 500MW operational capacity in the next 5 years. Melbourne forms part of the established data centre market in APAC alongside Chennai, Hong Kong, Hyderabad, Jakarta, Johor, Seoul and Singapore.

The next wave of data centre development will see builds exceed 100MW per site in both Sydney and Melbourne. Finding suitable land parcels in both Sydney and Melbourne for future data centre development continues to be challenging given the lack of suitably zoned land in both markets.

We anticipate that many markets across APAC will witness accelerated growth owing to technological enhancements such as the adoption of AI, cloud services and deployment of 5G services. Ongoing government and enterprise digitisation initiatives will also drive requirements for additional capacity.