This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
CANBERRA is about to be launched itself as a global technology hub with a mooted $1 billion data centre.
Yesterday, a consortium involving Canberra-based multi-utility ActewAGL, specialist data centre developer and investor Technical Real Estate backed by Thakral, and UK-based data centre designer Galileo Connect unveiled a the Canberra Technology City project.
ActewAGL’s general manager retail Ivan Slavich said CTC would be one of the most significant developments ever undertaken in Canberra and would be an additional boost to Canberra’s educational and technology leadership.
Slavich said the CTC would incorporate dual sites at Hume and Belconnen that would be marketed globally to capitalise on a world-wide shortage of secure and robust data centre facilities.
The main site at Hume would feature as many as 20 next generation data centres, whilst a second, smaller site at Belconnen would provide eight to 10 additional facilities for companies that demand dual sites for production, backup and recovery purposes.
TRE’s director Bruce McEwen said the project partners had identified an urgent need for purpose-built data centres that were designed around secure and scalable power infrastructure.
“The exponential growth in computer processing power and subsequent energy requirements are now exceeding the physical limits of existing data centre facilities worldwide,” he added.
McEwen said the CTC sites had already been secured from the ACT government, with the project targeted to address the chronic shortage for new data centres designed and engineered to be upgraded over the long term in line with customers’ expanding requirements.
“Through the Y2K boom and until the tech wreck of 2001, enormous amounts of capital had been invested globally in developing data centres based on old engineering designs and on fitting-out standard commercial grade buildings as data facilities.
“Many of those centres were now past their useful life. Much of the development had been speculative and this had led to a significant level of substandard data centre facilities worldwide… In recent months, power failures in Melbourne and Sydney had also had a dramatic effect on companies who housed their critical computer systems in CBD office locations.
“The boards of these companies are well aware of the need to move their computer operations to more robust data centres,” McEwen said.
TRE has appointed real estate services provider CB Richard Ellis to provide transaction management and advisory services for the CTC project. An Asia Pacific marketing roadshow will commence this week to market the project to prospective tenants.
CBRE Technology Practice Group, senior manager Mark Jones said the project was expected to attract particularly strong interest from global financial institutions that were re-assessing their long term requirements for “mission critical” data centre facilities in Asia.
Jones said the project would also utilise liquid Co² cooling to reduce power consumption by 30% in contrast to traditional air-cooled plant.
Lease pre-commitments will be sought for the proposed data centres, which have been designed by Galileo Connect. CTC is the first Asia Pacific project for Galileo, the world’s leading data centre designer following its involvement in the development of 1 million sqm of data centres in the UK and Europe.
Opportunities in the data centre market underpinned the recent launch of TRE by Stephen Ellis, the one-time Australian chief executive of CBRE. Other directors of TRE include Andrew Campbell, a former head of corporate services at CBRE; and McEwen, with 24 years experience at IBM as a senior executive.
Australian Property Journal
