31 GW of Data Centre Capacity in Development Across Australia

RenewMap is tracking 276 active data centre projects across Australia, and the numbers split unevenly across three stages: 150 operating facilities totalling roughly 2 GW, 30 under construction at about 3.7 GW, and 96 in development representing around 31 GW. One caveat sits in front of every figure. The megawatt values RenewMap tracks are connection capacities, not the lower IT load a facility draws at any given moment.

The size gap between what exists and what is proposed defines the story. Operating sites average about 20 MW. Projects under construction run seven times larger on average, and development-stage projects about 19 times larger in connection size. A 10 MW facility slots into the existing grid without much fuss. A campus in the many hundreds of megawatts needs its own generation, which is why the energy debate now centres on new large loads.

The Clean Energy Investor Group's latest Clean Energy Outlook report found 92% of investors expect data centres to be positive for clean energy investment. Federal government data centre standards and regulatory reforms point the same way: new large loads will be required to bring new firmed renewable energy to supply their consumption.

How much of the pipeline is real?

Of the capacity in development, only about 2.4 GW across 20 projects holds planning approvals. Around 9.8 GW across 31 projects sits under assessment, and roughly 19 GW across 29 projects has not been submitted for approval at all. By megawatts, more than half of the proposed capacity has never reached a planning department. RenewMap notes that several early-stage projects have not published a connection size, so the true total is understated.

Alex Thompson, RenewMap co-founder, frames the pipeline as real but early-stage: capital is committed to progressing through planning, yet plans change. In its 2026 Electricity Statement of Opportunities, the Australian Energy Market Operator stated that 36% of the data centre projects in its 2025 pipeline were later cancelled — some with connections already in place.

What does the regional shift change for developers?

Measured by capacity, 98% of operating data centres and 97% of those under construction sit in metropolitan areas. The development pipeline flips that ratio: 58% of proposed capacity is regional. Today's facilities needed low latency near population centres. The proposed campuses run AI training and inference workloads that tolerate distance, so developers chase regional land and grid capacity, often on brownfield sites — former coal regions, industrial areas with existing connections, or declared Renewable Energy Zones.

The examples are concrete:

• CDC's Wagga Wagga campus in regional NSW (1,400 MW), one of the largest single projects RenewMap tracks, plus IREN's Redbank Data Centre (900 MW), 1.4 GW of new battery developments and the 500 kV HumeLink transmission line.
• Victoria's Latrobe Valley: EnergyAustralia's Yallourn 1 and 2 (1,000 MW each) and Keppel's Morwell (720 MW) on retiring coal land.
• NSW Hunter region: the Hunter Valley AI Training Campus (1,000 MW), the Mayfield Energy Precinct at Newcastle (1,000 MW) and Wallerawang near Lithgow (1,000 MW).
• Queensland: Zerra DC's Western Downs Digital Park near Chinchilla, up to 2,160 MW across four stages, with Anthropic signing a long-term lease for AI inference workloads.
• South Australia: IREN's Bundey campus (800 MW) and the Aurora Energy Precinct (200 MW).
• The Northern Territory, where Project Ares and the Beetaloo Digital Data Centre push into genuinely remote territory.

Community pushback has sharpened scrutiny. CDC has proposed up to $225 million and IREN more than $200 million to the local council over 30 years for the two projects near Wagga Wagga — the same social-licence playbook wind, solar and BESS developers already run.

Which state approves faster?

Approval timelines now shape siting decisions. A data centre planning application in NSW takes on average about nineteen months; in Victoria, about five. Of the five most recently approved projects in each state, Victorian approvals took two to six months from lodgement, while NSW approvals ran from nineteen months to more than two years. More development applications were submitted in Victoria over the past six months than in any other state, and the pipeline is tilting accordingly.

Operating and under-construction capacity concentrates among a few providers — CDC, AirTrunk and NEXTDC — with most of that capacity still under construction. The development pipeline adds neocloud providers such as Firmus and IREN, several repurposed from crypto mining, plus energy and infrastructure players including EnergyAustralia, Syncline Energy, Malabar Resources and Greenspot.

The milestone to watch is the planning queue itself: whether the 19 GW of unsubmitted capacity reaches assessment, and whether regional communities accept the projects that follow.