NextDC opens $1b S3 data centre in northern Sydney

Data centre company NextDC has officially opened its $1 billion S3 data centre development in Sydney's north.

The facility has a target capacity of 80 megawatts aimed to support NextDC’s 1,600 customers and 770 partners, promising enhanced security and creating a more interconnected infrastructure ecosystem.

“S3 Sydney will enable our customers to accelerate their digital transformation and help to future proof their investment in digital infrastructure services,” NextDC chief executive and managing director Craig Scroggie said.

Located in Sydney’s lower north shore suburb of Artarmon, the facility is NextDC's largest in Sydney with some 20,000 square metres of space and 1,500 sqm of mission critical operation space, double the size of its other Sydney facilities. S3 will interconnect to S1 and S2 in Macquarie Park, as well as the company’s broader national digital infrastructure.

“S3 highlights NEXTDC’s world class design and innovation capabilities. This next generation facility has achieved Uptime Institute Tier IV design and construct certification and has been built to support our customers’ and partners’ need for data sovereignty, sustainability and best-in-class security,” Scroggie said.

NextDC said its strategic vision is to offer colocation services with 100 percent uptime guarantees and nationwide connectivity. Citing research from Gartner, the company said 85 percent of infrastructure strategies will integrate on-premises, colocation, cloud and edge delivery options by 2025, compared to 20 percent in 2020.

“The past few years have shown there is a heightened need for flexible, scalable and integrated technology platforms to support the accelerated digital economy and our new ways of working,” Scroggie said.

“The key to digital transformation success is secure, ultra-low latency cloud connectivity backed by resilient and sustainable infrastructure that allows organisations to optimise their digital footprint.”

In June, NextDC posted a $9.1 million profit after tax for the year ended 30 June 2022, up from a $23.6 million loss the year before. Its data centre services revenue rose 18 percent to $291 million.

In the same month, NextDC was tapped by AUCloud to build a nationwide Sovereign Bridge service to provide government agencies and critical national industries access to sovereign cloud services.