Melbourne, Australia - December 23, 2025 - Asia-Pacific hyperscale data centre operator AirTrunk has acquired a new site in north-west Melbourne to develop a 352-megawatt data centre campus, extending one of Australia’s largest concentrations of digital infrastructure as demand from cloud and artificial intelligence workloads continues to accelerate.
The new campus, known as MEL2, will sit alongside AirTrunk’s existing MEL1 facility and is expected to take the company’s total deployable capacity in Melbourne to more than 630MW once fully built out. AirTrunk said the development forms part of a broader multi-billion-dollar investment programme aimed at supporting long-term growth from hyperscale customers in Australia.
According to the company, MEL2 will be delivered in multiple phases and designed to support high-density deployments, reflecting rising power requirements driven by AI training and inference. The project is expected to represent an investment of around AUD 5 billion (USD 3.35 billion) over its lifecycle, making it one of the largest single data centre developments announced in the country.
AirTrunk said the site acquisition provides critical access to land and power in a market where suitable locations have become increasingly scarce. Melbourne is Australia’s second-largest data centre hub after Sydney, but new supply has been constrained by grid capacity, planning timelines, and competition for industrial land.
The operator estimates that the construction of MEL2 could support more than 4,000 jobs over the development period, with more than 200 ongoing operational roles once the campus is complete. The facility will also be designed to meet AirTrunk’s efficiency and sustainability benchmarks, including high-efficiency cooling and support for renewable energy sourcing.
Victoria’s state government welcomed the investment, highlighting the role of large-scale digital infrastructure in supporting economic growth and attracting global technology companies. Melbourne has positioned itself as a regional hub for cloud services, financial services platforms, and emerging AI applications, all of which are driving sustained demand for capacity.
AirTrunk’s expansion comes amid intensifying competition among data centre operators to secure sites capable of supporting multi-hundred-megawatt campuses. Hyperscalers are increasingly seeking fewer, larger facilities that can be expanded over time, rather than multiple smaller sites spread across metropolitan areas.
Industry analysts say the MEL2 development underlines a broader shift in the Asia-Pacific data centre market toward campus-style builds with long-term scalability. As AI workloads push power density higher, operators with access to land, grid connections, and capital are gaining a significant advantage.
Across Australia, AirTrunk now has five campuses in development or operation, with total planned capacity exceeding 1.2 gigawatts. The Melbourne expansion reinforces the company’s strategy of concentrating investment in a small number of large, power-rich locations, positioning it to meet the next wave of cloud and AI infrastructure demand.
