Leading Edge Data Centres has announced a $19.6 million project to upgrade Newcastle and Hunter region’s digital infrastructure, marking the inception of a wider roll-out of a ground-breaking Tier-3 Edge Data Centre network across NSW.
The Development Approval (DA) has been granted and the construction is underway with market-leading technology partner, Schneider Electric, who is manufacturing at a local facility near Newcastle.
Combining Leading Edge Data Centres and Schneider Electric equipment and expertise, a world-class 1.5 megawatt (mW) Data Centre campus, comprised of four 375 kW facilities, is set to open by November 2020.
The facility will provide direct cloud access to all the major cloud environments in Newcastle for the first time, reducing the need for local enterprises to be connected to Metro Sydney.
The infrastructure will provide faster connectivity for local businesses and will drive innovation and job growth for the region.
Leading Edge Data Centres will be helping to creating more than 130 new jobs across NSW during the construction period across its shovel ready projects with many of the 14 other NSW locations in the DA process with local councils.
CEO of Leading Edge Data Centres, Chris Thorpe, said this will revolutionise the region and enable more secure and functional IT infrastructure.
“A significant game changer for the Newcastle and the Hunter Region, Leading Edge Data Centres will deliver the enablement platform to help decrease data internet latency issues,” he said.
“This is being done to reduce the dependency on Metro based IT infrastructure. By providing a world-class Tier-3 certified Data Centre facility, we are ensuring a secure, concurrently maintainable environment for local and national enterprises to locate their IT infrastructure.”
This paves the way for businesses to prosper in Newcastle while delivering a better digital experience for both local industry and residents, whilst making the Newcastle and Hunter regions more attractive for both national and global enterprises to have a physical presence close to the user.
“Enhancing regional connectivity is of strategic importance to Australia’s digital infrastructure upgrade. For booming regional areas like Newcastle and the Hunter, taking the compute capacity closer to the source of deployment and usage is paramount.”
“The reliance organisations have on fast access to data and compute capacity that is comparable in terms of speeds and pricing to metro access is essential to ensure a level playing field with Metropolitan locations.
“In today’s world, with the current upheaval, we have seen large numbers of the Australian workforce working remotely. With high capacity localised quality Data Centre’s close to home, essential services, agriculture, mining, employees, students, and local and state governments alike can work in an efficient and appropriately priced IT environment,” Christ concludes
Newcastle Lord Mayor, Nuatali Nelmes, said that the city of Newcastle will reap the rewards of such advanced digital infrastructure. With this advancement, the region hopes to make IT services smarter and more innovative for many years to come.
“City of Newcastle welcomes the news of this significant investment in digital infrastructure in the region, which aligns with our goals to create a smart, global city under the Newcastle Smart City Strategy,” Nuatali said.
In parallel to its Phase 1 roll-out of 14 regional Data Centre’s, Leading Edge Data Centre’s is already well advanced in planning to expand its edge network into regional locations in Victoria and Queensland.
IMAGE | Render from Schneider (actual inside of data centre).
