Construction begins on NEXTDC's D1 Darwin data centre

Data centre operator NEXTDC said it has begun development of its D1 facility in Darwin, expected to be competed in June next year.

D1 is being built with NEXTDC partner Kapitol Group, and work on the data centre officially started yesterday, with a ground breaking ceremony featuring Northern Territory chief minister Natasha Fyles.

Planned capacity for D1 includes 1500 server racks over 3000m² technical and 2000m² mission critical space, and eight megawatts of power.

Power usage effectiveness is targeted at 1.5, with 100 per cent uptime.

More than 200 jobs in the region are expected to be created throughout the life of the project, and the daily operation of the facility, NEXTDC said.

The D1 facility is located at 2 Harvey St in Darwin, near the central business district and the Charles Darwin Univiersty city campus.

Backbone operator Vocus is partnering with NEXTDC at the D1 facility, integrating its Terabit Territory fibre network with the data centre.

Terabit Territory will connect secure, high capacity networks to NT, along with direct access to South-East Asia through the Darwin-Jakarta-Singapore Cable (DJSC).

“As our flagship data centre in NT, D1 Darwin forms part of NEXTDC’s strategy to leverage the next frontier of Edge computing and for the region, it is a big step towards national digital equity,” NEXTDC chief executive Craig Scroggie said.

“Its proximity to Darwin’s CBD and direct access to the major submarine cable infrastructure, means legacy industries such as mining and resources alongside the emerging defence sector can have real-time responsiveness to operational and mission-critical needs, fully capturing the value of emerging technologies," he added.