NSW Govt unveils data centre shortlist

The NSW Government has shortlisted five potential bidders in the state's data centre consolidation program.

The project calls for the construction and financing of two data centres connected in an 'active-active' configuration by 2011.

The centres were expected to be located in Sydney and the Illawarra region, south of Sydney.

NSW Health and the NSW Department of Education have been named as the 'anchor tenants' for the facilities.

The state's Commerce Minister Paul Lynch announced today that five companies and consortiums would be invited to tender for the project.

They include Global Switch Property, Gresham Rabo Management, Leighton Contractors, Macquarie Capital Group and the Plenary Group Unit Trust.

Leighton Contractors were bidding in partnership with Springfield Land Corporation, a company best known for its Polaris data centre project in Queensland.

The Leighton-Springfield tie-up was first announced back in March 2009.

A spokeswoman for Leighton Contractors told iTnews they were pleased to be shortlisted.

"We look forward to working with the NSW government to understand their tender requirements," she said.

"We believe our partnership with Springfield will greatly assist us in identifying and achieving greater energy efficiencies in the design and operation of new state of the art data centre facilities."

Other shortlisted bidders have also been contacted for comment.

Lynch said that, subject to approval, the Government would "release a comprehensive request-for-tender to the shortlisted candidates in the near future."

"This is a bold step by the NSW Government to consolidate its agencies' data centre capacity," he said of the project.

"The shortlisted applicants have demonstrated they can meet the high standards set by the NSW Government."

Lynch thanked the other 12 companies and consortiums that missed the cut. They included Canberra Data Centres, Equinix, Datacom, CSC Australia and Fujitsu Australia, among others.