The new world-class data centre will attract new businesses, drive job growth and support Newcastle’s transformation into a Smart City

As published in: Hunter Headline

NEWCASTLE, 29 JANUARY 2021 – Leading Edge Data Centres (LEDC) is about to open its doors to the new world class data centre in Newcastle. The Tier III data centre will support the growth of local businesses and attract new businesses to Newcastle, driving economic growth across the Hunter Region. Local Residents will benefit as it supports the City of Newcastle to flourish as a Smart City.

On Friday 29 January, over 100 people attended a pre-launch event to take a tour of the new data centre in the Steel River Industrial Estate. Attendees included representatives of Councils from across NSW as well as over 50 local businesses. The modern 75-rack data centre facility puts Newcastle on par with its metropolitan counterparts and will house the infrastructure of some of Newcastle’s most innovative companies.

The data centre will support the City of Newcastle’s award-winning Smart City strategy, as the facility will attract new businesses, start-ups and entrepreneurs.  It will also attract National enterprise to relocate operations to the region, supporting local industries and growing the local digital economy. The new data centre will be available for Newcastle businesses to process their own data locally, as well as create a new platform for innovation and technology growth.

LEDC is providing a large choice of connectivity providers, both through access to all the major telco carriers and cloud providers.  LEDC recently announced that customers will be able to access direct cloud access through their partnership with Megaport, which will provide options around on-demand, multi-could connectivity with access to global cloud on-ramps.

Leading Edge DC CEO & Founder Chris Thorpe said, “We are days away from opening our doors and we are really excited about the opportunity that we are providing to Newcastle businesses. Local companies will now have access to a modern, world-class, secure facility with access to all the major providers so that they can operate on a level playing field with Metropolitan Sydney.”

“Newcastle has the vision to become a Smart City,” Thorpe added, “With the high demand for innovation platforms, the influx of data volumes from Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the requirement for high processing speeds, the City of Newcastle now has the right infrastructure to achieve its vision.”

The data centre has been designed and built by Schneider Electric, a world leader in data centre technology.  Joe Craparotta, Vice President Schneider Electric said, “We are delighted to have been part of this project which is accelerating the digital transformation of regional Australia.”

“We have been able to combine Leading Edge Data Centres and Schneider Electric’s Ecostruxure for Data Centre systems along with the expertise of world-class people. Working with Chris’ vision of optimising the economic activity within Australia we decided to build the modular data centre in Heatherbrae, NSW and then delivered and commissioned on-site in Newcastle,” said Craparotta. “We are proud to have provided Newcastle with a world-class and sustainable data centre, which created over 195 jobs over the past nine months.”

Newcastle will be LEDC’s first data centre, followed by Tamworth in April and 12 other sites in NSW, with sites currently under negotiation in VIC and QLD.