This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
SKS Technologies and property developer/contractor Built have been awarded a $90 million plus international hyperscale data centre in Melbourne, as demand for the digital infrastructure continues to soar.
The contract is inclusive of the early works package and form part of the 100MW expansion of the data centre in Melbourne’s western region to a total capacity of 185MW, making it one of the largest data centres in the country with the capacity to offer both cloud and AI services.
The exact location and operator of the data centre has remained confidential, with a $30 million hyperscale data announced in November 2023 that was initially scheduled for completion by December 2024.
“This latest contract award reflects the market’s confidence in SKS Technologies’ ability to deliver superior electrical systems that are critical to the reliable operation of a data centre,” said Matthew Jinks, CEO at SKS Technologies.
“It is also indicative of the strength of the pipeline of opportunities in the data centre sector, which saw $18 billion of projects announced for hyperscale data centres in Melbourne and Sydney in 2023 alone.”
The project brings SKS Technologies’ work on hand to a new record high of $178 million.
“This project enables the continuation of our relationship with Built, a substantial and innovative construction company with expertise in a range of areas, including data centres,” added Jinks.
“Furthermore, based on past initiatives to apply our expertise and experience to the data centre market and capture a share of this rapidly growing opportunity, SKS Technologies is now able to execute sophisticated, large-scale projects for the organisations at the forefront of this new and growing frontier.”
As activity booms and capital pours into data centre assets, Infratel’s investment in CDC Data Centres this month announced a valuation uplift of $466 million over the last three months.
While April, NextDC launched a $1.32 billion raising to develop and boost facilities in Sydney and Melbourne. With Macquarie Data Centres is set to to acquire land and buildings from Keppel DC REIT in a $174 million deal.
In fact, CBRE’s annual Global Data Centre Investor Survey found 97% of respondents are planning to increase their investment into data centres in 2024, with 92% allocating more than $100 million into data centres and 44% planning to allocate more than US$500 million into the sector.
After CBRE’s Q1 Asia Pacific Data Centre Trends report found new Australian data centre supply is now fully contracted, due largely to rapid cloud adoption and AI demand.
While on the other hand, Alibaba Cloud has announced plans to close its data centres in Sydney later this year, in anticipation of potential changes by the Australian government over data sovereignty.
SKS Technologies has also provided a total annual revenue forecast for FY25 of around $200 million plus, based on the accelerating pipeline of work.
“It’s pleasing to see the continued growth of the business, which is a clear reflection of the market’s confidence in SKS Technologies’ ability to scale resources, and successfully deliver projects across its national footprint, and its broad range of targeted market sectors,” said Jinks.
The data centre expansion project is scheduled to be completed by August 2025.
