Dubbo Regional Council (DRC) has welcomed the opening of a $7.7M dollar data centre in Dubbo, unlocking potential for more than 600 local jobs and more than $100M per year in regional economic growth.
The centre also paves the way for faster, more reliable and less expensive internet access, as well as opening up the region for significant future investment.
The company behind the development, Leading Edge Data Centres (LEDC) chose Dubbo as its third investment location in Australia after building centres in Newcastle and Tamworth.
LEDC is a provider of Tier III regional data centres which, in Dubbo will provide direct cloud connectivity rather than having to connect through internet links to Sydney, and will significantly change the digital landscape for Western NSW.
DRC has been working closely with LEDC in establishing the centre.
"The Economic Development team at council worked alongside other members of government and private industry to support bringing this development to Dubbo, including finding the right locations and potential business partners," said DRC CEO Murray Wood. "A really good outcome was that David Payne Construction not only delivered this facility, but is delivering data centres in Coffs Harbor, Albury and other places."
"In our private lives data is all around us whether it's our Netflix watching habits or our phones. But every industry is going to an advanced level of data use and management, particularly Edge data where you need the management of data to be very close to where you're using it."
"In our region in particular there's a renewable energy zone where we effectively have a huge dispersed power station that's going to need data management."
"We have an autonomous car trial happening here in Dubbo, so our vehicles and transport habits as well as products for freight logistics are going to rely more and more on some level of automation, and also data management."
"Water is another example – we have a lot of it at the moment but it was a completely different story very recently. To get the most out of every milliletre we're going to use lots of data measuring tools, but then we've got to have the capacity to manage that data effectively in quick response times, and a big facility like this enables that to happen."In terms of setting up our region for success, this is a key piece of essential infrastructure."
An analysis by Social Ventures Australia indicated some long-term impacts from the centre include:
- 621 jobs created
- $57M per year contribution to the economy
- $30M in benefits to businesses through decreased network costs, reduction of network outages and increased productivity
- $20M in benefits by unlocking new business opportunities
- $475,000 in benefits through averted carbon dioxide emissions.
