Several key factors play an important role in choosing where to build data centres. Access to capable fibre networks, the local price of energy sources, and the changing surrounding environment all influence where organisations choose to construct them.

Experts foresee the global data centre construction market exceeding $57B by 2025, as new additions such as DNA storage, blockchain, artificial intelligence continue to drive storage demands.  This is a market that is here to stay and is only going to grow and consume more land and power as time goes on. Companies that wish to thrive in this exponentially expanding market must look to the future and plan their trajectories accordingly.

As the world’s ever-expanding population continues to eat up the remaining available land space, companies face heated competition for their ideal locations of operation. Data centres area a resource that can be pushed to more remote or less populated locations, as once they are complete they do not require large staff numbers.

With energy prices on the rise, and pressure on big business to go green, companies must look for smarter location options to build their sustainable infrastructure. This, coupled with the increasing temperatures across the globe, leads to the conclusions that it would be beneficial to move power intensive data centres to cooler climates. This region shift would result in cheaper operating costs and improved sustainability, as less artificial cooling is required.

As we look across the Bass Strait from Melbourne, Tasmania has many of these desirable aspects. It may be the next logical step for Australian data centres. On average Tasmania reaches maximum summer temperatures of 23 degrees Celsius, a far more suitable climate for keeping data racks at manageable temperatures than regions closer to the equator. This, coupled with an abundance of hydro power stations supplying cheaper green power, make the island an attractive option and offer the added possibility of utilizing various carbon offset initiatives.

The only remaining issue is data links to the rest of the world. If links between Melbourne and beyond are sound enough, then Tasmania may be an ideal location for building data centres in Australia. The demand appears to be here to stay, so soon it may be a no brainer to move our data centres to the Apple Isle in the South.