Australian data centre floor space growth rate 'exceptional'

Australia has become the highest growing co-location market in the world, adding data centre floor space at a rate of knots in the last three years, according to analyst firm TeleGeography.

NextDC's Sydney data centre.

The analyst firm said retail co-lo capacity reached over 130,000 square metres in Sydney and almost 87,000 square metres in Melbourne this year, having grown at around 30 percent compounded annually from 2011.

This represents "exceptionally strong" co-lo capacity growth rate, far higher than the worldwide 12 percent increase between 2011 and 2014 that TeleGeography tracked.

Source: TeleGeography

TeleGeography said NextDC was the main contributor to the growth in Sydney and Melbourne, having added almost 18,600 square metres of space in both cities over the past three years. NextDC also established a presence in Perth this year.

Earlier this month, iTnews reported that Amazon Web Services would build two new data centres in Sydney, with an unknown amount of floor space.

Global Switch also expanded its existing capacity in Sydney, spending $300 million on a new wing for its existing facility which was running out of space.