Auckland’s multi-billion data centre boom: DCI ups its spend to $600m with second server farm

Auckland’s multibillion-dollar knowledge centre growth simply obtained larger, with Australian contender DCI Knowledge Centres revealing that it now plans to spend $600 million on two new amenities.

The pandemic has accelerated a growth in cloud
computing, or utilizing software program and providers over the web – from the likes of Zoom and Slack to Netflix and multiplayer video games.

Whereas “the cloud” is usually used as a metaphor, on-line providers and on-line storage contain large knowledge centres or “server farms” full of hundreds or tens of hundreds of computer systems, all of which should be cooled.

Conserving knowledge centres native is best for efficiency, and implies that the likes of banks and authorities departments don’t have to fret concerning the knowledge sovereignty points that may complicate life if recordsdata are saved in server farms abroad, the place totally different privateness and safety legal guidelines can apply.

New Zealand presently has no knowledge centres within the top-tier “hyperscale” class.

However instantly, many are on the way in which. In Might 2020, half Infratil-owned Canberra Knowledge Centres (CDC) introduced plans for 2 hyperscale knowledge centres: a 7000sqm facility in Hobsonville and an 11,000sq m server farm in Silverdale in a $300m-plus venture that now has building underway.

Microsoft quickly adopted, breaking floor in February 2021 on the primary of three hyperscale knowledge centres in northwest Auckland. The tech large has not put a price ticket on the venture, apart from to verify that it’s one thing greater than the $100m threshold for Abroad Funding Workplace approval. Early clients will embody Fonterra, BNZ and Spark.

In August, Spark stated it will improve its Takanini knowledge centre to a ten megawatt hyperscale facility in a venture that might – at the very least for some time – be New Zealand’s largest server farm (within the advanced cloud wars, Spark co-operates with the multinationals for some providers, and makes use of its in-house infrastructure for others).

And Amazon has stated it’s going to spend $7.5 billion constructing a cluster of giant knowledge centres in Auckland, because of open in 2024 because it creates a neighborhood Amazon Internet Providers (AWS) area.

Tim Dacombe-Fowl, the New Zealand head of AWS, stated firm’s $7.5b determine included the price of constructing at the very least three knowledge centres and stocking them with {hardware}, plus working prices together with utilities and salaries. Dacombe-Fowl stated the Amazon’s construct would create 1000 new jobs.

His firm claims the construct can have a $10.4b optimistic financial influence on this nation’s economic system over its first decade.

And now we have now the most recent improvement: DCI’s buy of a five-hectare (or 50,000sqm) web site on the North Shore – the place CEO Malcolm Roe says it’s going to construct NZ’s largest server farm, which might be referred to as “AKL02”.

The Australian agency already has an enormous knowledge centre below building at Westgate, AKL01, which is because of open in 2023.

Building on AKL02 – which the Herald understands is within the Albany/Rosedale space – will start in the midst of this 12 months, with industrial operation because of start in 2024.

It’s no coincidence that the brand new wave of supermassive knowledge centres might be clustered across the North Shore and the close by northwest, on condition that worldwide cables land at Takapuna and Whenuapai, whereas Albany homes NZ’s largest web peering trade – or facility to assist web site visitors get to the appropriate place, within the quickest attainable time.

Roe says DCI’s mixed knowledge centre construct will contain $600m in direct building and setup prices.

“AKL01 and AKL02 can have a mixed financial worth exceeding $1.4b over the lifetime of the initiatives. Every knowledge centre will create greater than 150 jobs throughout building and roughly 250 ongoing expert info know-how and telecommunications jobs as soon as the websites are operational,” Roe says.

Knowledge centres are described by the quantity of energy they require at peak operation.

Roe says AKL02 might be a 40 megawatt facility – which, as issues stand, would make it NZ’s largest knowledge centre (AKL01 might be a 10MW server farm).

The DCI boss says his firm is already in talks with Vector concerning the “energy design” for his firm’s North Shore facility.

“Window dressing”

He says that can contain a pledge to make use of 100 per cent renewable energy – by which he means hydro and geothermal generated electrical energy.

Many server farms offshore characteristic banks of photo voltaic panels, however Roe says the know-how isn’t sensible for the Auckland builds.

“Even when we lined the entire 5 hectares in photo voltaic panels, that might solely generate a tenth of the facility required by AKL02,” he says. “Plenty of the photo voltaic panels you see on knowledge centres are simply window dressing.”

Roe provides that his firm is engaged on new sustainability options with Naylor Love, which gained the contract to construct AKL01 at Westgate (AKL02 continues to be out to tender).

“DCI is main the trade in delivering new cooling applied sciences to considerably improve our energy utilisation effectiveness and water utilisation effectiveness to minimise our influence on the surroundings,” says Roe.

Knowledge centre industrial politics might be one other issue, as soon as all the brand new amenities come on-line.

Microsoft companions carefully with CDC throughout the Tasman. And whereas it’s primarily based in Sydney, DCI is owned by Canada’s Brookfield Asset Administration – the corporate that teamed with Infratil to purchase Vodafone NZ.

Southland contender?

The intertwined discipline might turn out to be extra crowded but.

Startup Datagrid – whose backers embody rich-lister Malcolm Dick and Singapore’s BW Group – is planning a $530m, 60MW hyperscale facility in Southland.

The plan, first revealed in 2020, sees Datagrid taking over a number of the slack from Meridian’s 572MW Manapouri Energy Station after the Tiwai smelter is taken offline.

The scheme relies on funding being discovered for a brand new worldwide fibre cable that might hyperlink Invercargill, Dunedin and Christchurch with Los Angeles, Singapore and Jakarta – which might turn out to be the South Island’s first main broadband hyperlink with the surface world.

The cable can be operated by Hawaiki Cable, which was based by Dick and others and purchased by BW Group for an undisclosed sum final 12 months. Hawaiki already operates a trans-Pacific Cable with touchdown factors in Auckland and Northland.

Whereas funds are nonetheless being rustled up, Datagrid introduced within the New 12 months that it has purchased a 43-hectare web site in North Makarewa, a rural space about 20km north of Invercargill.

All going to plan, Datagrid will open the primary part of its deliberate knowledge centre in 2024 as a 60MW facility, with a plan to improve it to 100MW.

Famine to feast – and a little bit an excessive amount of feast

With Auckland about to go from no hyperscale knowledge centres to at the very least 10 (three constructed by Microsoft, at the very least three from Amazon, two from CDC and DCI’s twin set), is the market sufficiently big for that many gamers?

“New Zealand is underserved for public cloud infrastructure,” says Roe.

All the information centres introduced or below building for Auckland (and NZ, excluding the drawing-board Datagrid) complete about 80MW, by the DCI boss’ estimate – an enormous increase on right this moment however nonetheless nicely wanting the 450MW of information centres clustered round Sydney.

“So there’s nonetheless room for enormous develop,” he says.