Toowoomba's Pulse Data Centre opens doors

A $40 million data centre touting itself as Australia’s first regional tier 3 colocation facility has opened its doors in Toowoomba, Queensland.

Pulse Data Centre, built by construction firm FKG Group as part of its Toowoomba Technology Park, is looking to leverage its location in a lower-cost region to bring in clients that want to save money while bringing in jobs and investment to the city.

“The majority of the world’s largest data centres are located not in capital cities but in regional areas, which thanks to the latest technology can provide not only lower costs, but also scalability and access to national communications infrastructure,” FKG Group executive chairman Gary Gardner said.

“Together with our commitment to exploring opportunities for the development and production of our own power through clean and renewable energy sources, Pulse Data Centre is well positioned to become an extremely cost-competitive offering, attractive to businesses from around the world.”

Pulse Data Centre will be the cornerstone of the Technology Park, which aims to develop an “innovation precinct” capitalising on the fibre-optic communications links to the data centre and within the park.

Direct inland routes to commercial centres, including Sydney and Brisbane, will give data centre clients access to physically diverse fibre connectivity.

FKG partnered with Schneider Electric and Telstra, with the former providing data centre solutions, internet of things (IoT) and industrial technologies expertise, while the latter will power the regional network supporting Pulse.

“We saw this as an opportunity to bring our global expertise in data centre solutions, energy management, and cybersecurity to Toowoomba and cement Australia’s ability to host data centres to serve the Pacific zone,” Schneider Electric Pacific Zone president Gareth O’Reilly said.

“The team set out to build in record time an energy efficient, reliable, secure and scalable data centre. That has been achieved by using our EcoStruxure platform and the Pulse Data Centre is a project everyone can be proud of.”

Gardner also partnered with the Queensland government to get the project started, which includes a $10 million interest-free loan via its catalytic infrastructure funding program, anticipating the data centre to double Toowoomba’s gross regional product over the next 15 years.

“The Toowoomba region has one of Australia’s most robust regional economies, with its economic strength backed up by multi-billion-dollar investments in infrastructure from the private and public sectors,” Toowoomba regional council mayor Paul Antonio said.

“Pulse Data Centre is another important piece of the infrastructure puzzle that places our region at the cutting edge of innovation across a broad range of industries including agriculture, education, health, IT and mining.”