According to Knight Frank’s recently published Global Data Centres Report, Australia is second only to the US as a top data centre investment location. In 2024 Australia deployed $6.7 billion in capital according to the report.
The report projected that the market would grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18% over the next five years to 2030.
The report also identified the Asia Pacific region as the global leader in data centre investment as the region accounted for $25.8 billion of investment last year, and up to 70% of cross-border investment.
The market momentum that is driving the Australian data centre market forward can be linked to the recent US ruling that granted the country access to Nvidia AI chips, according to Knight Frank. Australia is also one of the four nations in APAC exempt from export restrictions on advanced computing items and AI model weights.which positions the country well in the AI race against regional competitors.
Knight Frank head of industrial investments Angus Klem said buyer demand for data centres was only strengthening in Australia, pointing to the example of the sale of AirTrunk by Blackstone to the Canadian Pension Plan Investment board in 2024. Klein says that the high-profile sale helped also to build data centre investment momentum and that momentum is driven by both overseas and domestic activity: “We are also seeing domestic buyers doing the groundwork and readying themselves to invest, and with capital competing for opportunities, we will continue to see rapid growth in the data centre space.”
While he states that “Sydney has seen significant activity in the data centre space” he notes that “the focus now looks to be turning to Melbourne.” He sees that the momentum will flow in time through to all Australian capital cities.
Source: https://www.knightfrank.com/research/report-library/data-centres-global-report-2025-12054.aspx