Viridis Green Data Centres has secured planning approval for a new edge data centre in Burnie, Tasmania, marking a step forward in its strategy to deploy high-security infrastructure in decentralised Australian markets. The approval, granted by Burnie City Council without conditions, clears the way for the company’s planned Tier III facility in the Burnie CBD, with a target go-live in the first half of 2027.
The project will see an existing commercial building repurposed into a Zone 4 edge data centre, designed to support government, defence, and industry workloads “requiring high levels of security and resilience”.
The facility is expected to draw around 1MW of power from the grid and will incorporate a staged clean-energy microgrid, combining solar, battery storage, and hydrogen-based backup. Viridis said the site will leverage Tasmania’s predominantly renewable energy mix and local climate conditions to enable free-air cooling and reduce operational emissions.
The 1,215 sqm site will be the only facility of its kind in North-West Tasmania, addressing what the company describes as a gap in sovereign infrastructure for regional users. “The Burnie approval is a significant milestone for Viridis and for the region,” said Michael Bull, managing director of Viridis Green Data Centres.
“North-West Tasmania has not had access to this class of infrastructure before and we are focused on delivering a facility that serves the long-term needs of government, defence and industry in the region,” he added.
The development forms part of Viridis’s broader pipeline, alongside projects in Townsville and Sydney, as the company targets edge and regional locations where demand for secure, localised infrastructure is increasing.
Repurposing site for digital infrastructure
The Burnie facility will be developed within a former newspaper printing centre owned by Arcana Capital, reflecting a wider trend of repurposing legacy industrial and commercial assets for digital infrastructure. “This project sees the repurposing of the old Advocate Newspaper print centre to a modern information technology asset for the 21st century,” said Campbell Newman, chairman and managing director of Arcana Capital.
Local government also backed the development, pointing to its role in supporting regional investment and economic activity. “Projects like this demonstrate confidence in the future of our region and the potential of our city centre,” said Teeny Brumby, mayor of Burnie City Council.
The approval follows Viridis’s acquisition of Oper8 Global last year in a AUD 50 million deal, which expanded its capabilities in modular data centre design, build, and operations.
The company has positioned itself around delivering sovereign, high-security infrastructure, combining modular deployments with clean energy systems, as demand grows for AI-ready and defence-grade facilities outside traditional metro hubs. With the Burnie project now approved, Viridis said it is advancing its strategy to establish a distributed network of edge facilities across Australia, targeting customers with requirements for both proximity and high-security data environments.