Hyperscale data centre specialist AirTrunk has opened its second Sydney hyperscale data centre.

AirTrunk, which is owned by a consortium led by Macquarie Asia Infrastructure Fund 2 (MAIF2), Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), along with CEO Robin Khuda, is a best-in-class provider for large enterprise customers in the Asia-Pacific region. MAIF2 is managed by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets, one of the world’s leading alternative asset managers and part of the ASX-listed Macquarie Group Limited.

Fuelling growth

Industry watchers opine that the opening of its second Sydney data centre in the city’s north, AirTrunk SYD2, could have significant ramifications in the region. Fuelled by accelerated cloud adoption, SYD2 demonstrates the continued customer demand for AirTrunk’s digital infrastructure by the world’s largest technology companies. It would give further support to the growth of cloud customers, in the region.

Clean energy push

This growth will be managed through clean energy, the company said.

SYD2, with more than 110-megawatts (MW) of capacity, will be one of the largest single-campus data centres in the Asia-Pacific region, along with sister facilities in Western Sydney (130+MW) and Melbourne (130+MW). This takes AirTrunk’s total capacity in Australia to over 370 MW.

Adding to its expanding Asia-Pacific hyperscale data centre platform, the opening of the SYD2 campus follows the company’s dual data centre launch in Hong Kong and Singapore in December 2020. Since its first data centre opened in September 2017, AirTrunk now operates five data centres offering a Asia-Pacific platform with unmatched scale, speed, efficiency and reliability to all major global public cloud customers, the company said.

When its Tokyo data centre is set to be unveiled later this year, the total capacity of the platform will grow to over 750MW across five tier-one markets.

Founder and CEO of AirTrunk, Robin Khuda, said today’s opening is yet another milestone for the company and would allow unprecedented scale for AirTrunk’s customers in the Sydney market.

“Throughout the Asia-Pacific region we’re delivering hyperscale data centre campuses at accelerated speed to enable the growth of the digital economy,” said Khuda.

Strategically located in major cloud availability zones and well connected to telecommunications infrastructure, SYD2 will offer cloud service providers customised and scalable capacity in the northern suburbs of Sydney. Powered by a dedicated 200MVA 132kV substation – one of the largest substations in the state of New South Wales – the reliable power infrastructure will deliver 100 per cent availability and cost-effectiveness for customers.

“SYD2 has all the hallmarks of AirTrunk’s state-of-the-art data centres, and we are well-positioned to offer the scale and service that our global customers need now and into the future,” said Khuda.

Nestled into the landscape across 3.95ha of land, AirTrunk has created a sustainable environment, ensuring the protection of the unique and sensitive local environment while accommodating this significant development opportunity.

SYD2 has been designed to an industry-low power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.15. To deliver this efficiency, AirTrunk developed a range of innovations including an industry-first cooling solution that optimises efficiency using real-time weather data analysis. This cooling solution is AirTrunk’s most energy-efficient deployment to date and also consumes 90% less water annually than traditional cooling solutions.

Damien Spillane, Chief Technology Officer added, “AirTrunk is committed to championing sustainability and our team are constantly innovating to improve data centre efficiency. We’re designing hyperscale data centres, like SYD2, that are significantly more energy efficient than traditional on-premise data centres, reducing total emissions and the impact on the environment.”

The first of SYD2’s four phases opened today, and AirTrunk is ready to scale out the data centre to over 110MW of total capacity to support customer growth. Built in just 35 weeks, record time despite COVID-19 impacts, the construction of Phase One involved over 2,800 people and 400,000 work hours. AirTrunk’s continued emphasis on ensuring the safety of its people, customers and partners has resulted in no lost time injuries during the project.

The significant investment in critical digital infrastructure has brought material benefits to the local economy including hundreds of jobs during construction and on-going operations.

A ceremony was held at SYD2 with a Welcome to Country by Yvonne Weldon, Chairperson of Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council Sydney and the data centre was officially opened by The Hon. Anthony Roberts MP, Member for Lane Cove.