Vocus plans 4,000km Brisbane to Darwin fibre route

Vocus has announced a new 4,000-kilometre ducted long-haul fibre route connecting Brisbane, Townsville and Darwin, the second project under its Australian Digital Infrastructure Platform (ADIP), as the company moves to address growing demand from hyperscaler, neocloud and enterprise customers.

The Brisbane–Darwin corridor will accommodate up to 3,456 fibre strands and is expected to be ready for service in 2030. Vocus said it has begun route planning, technical design and customer engagement as part of the project's early works phase.

For partners and customers, the route promises additional capacity, diversity and resilience on a corridor connecting Australia's east coast to northern Australia - a region Vocus described as an increasingly important hub for AI, cloud and digital services.

ADIP is Vocus' multi-year initiative to expand Australia's fibre capacity across both subsea and terrestrial networks, covering thousands of new fibre route kilometres and hundreds of additional terabits of capacity.

Last month, Vocus selected UGL as development partner for the ADIP.

"Australia is in a period of unprecedented investment in AI infrastructure, data centres and international connectivity, requiring exponential investment in new terrestrial and subsea fibre networks," said Andres Irlando, chief executive officer at Vocus.

"Northern Australia is becoming a critical region for AI, cloud and digital services, with Queensland and the Northern Territory emerging as important data centre precincts and gateways connecting Australia with Asia and the United States."

"Vocus already operates critical international infrastructure in northern Australia, including the Darwin-Jakarta-Singapore Cable system and the North - West Cable System. Other global subsea network initiatives by Google and Meta with interests in northern Australia are also in progress," said Nikos Katinakis, chief technology officer at Vocus.

“The Brisbane-Darwin corridor will strengthen the connection to Australia's east coast and give customers additional capacity, diversity , and resilience. It will also extend Australia ’s first ducted inter-capital design, introduced initially by Vocus through ADIP’s Sydney-Melbourne route, creating a scalable foundation for incremental fibre deployments over time ."

Vocus-commissioned market research indicates Australia's data centre capacity will triple by 2030, with AI workloads projected to drive the majority of future long-haul fibre demand. The company said existing fibre corridors are experiencing increasing utilisation as connectivity demand accelerates.